


nos separamos a medianoche

by the_parallax_of_rain



Category: Better Call Saul (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Angst, Backstory, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Ciro POV, Fire, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, M/M, Metaphors, Mildly Dubious Consent, Non-Chronological, Post-Something Unforgiveable, Road Trips, Rough Sex, Seasonal Imagery, Symbolism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-14
Updated: 2020-09-15
Packaged: 2021-03-05 06:20:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25259857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_parallax_of_rain/pseuds/the_parallax_of_rain
Summary: And in hindsight, Ciro might have paid closer attention to that spark in Lalo’s eyes as he, full of wonder, had mouthed the name of the mysterious Ignacio Varga, born from fire.Or: Ciro meets his replacement.
Relationships: Eduardo "Lalo" Salamanca/Ciro (Better Call Saul), Eduardo "Lalo" Salamanca/Ignacio "Nacho" Varga
Comments: 37
Kudos: 29
Collections: Lacho Week 2020





	1. no vueles demasiado cerca del sol

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, Ciro appeared for all of 10 seconds in the season 5 finale but ever since his brief appearance in the show, and thanks to Seraphtrev’s lovely (and heart-breaking) interpretation of him in her series “Only You”, I’ve just been thinking about him a lot! This fic at its core is primarily Lalo/Ciro, but Nacho plays a significant role and there’s a lot of Lacho coming up as well! Also… Ciro’s name means “of the sun” and I took a lot of liberties with this info :’)
> 
> Happy Lacho Week!!
> 
> Update: Also...check out this absolutely beautiful and stunning [artwork](https://asdllkshfad.tumblr.com/post/631520640948715520/what-do-you-think-lalo-asked-him-serenely) that [asdllkshfad on Tumblr](https://asdllkshfad.tumblr.com) created for this fic! I cannot thank her enough for bringing this scene to life! ❤️ (And please go check out her other art as well!!) 

It’s nearly one in the morning when Ciro is finally able to coax the last horse back into the stable. He sighs upon seeing the grass stains covering his palms and tries to wipe them away on his pants. He has never been great with handling the horses and they don’t seem to be that fond of him either, judging by the way they had knocked him to the ground multiple times. And of course, they’ve made him late. 

By the time he makes it to the backyard Lalo is already waiting for him, lounging in a chair, feet kicked up on the ledge of the lit fireplace. His travel bag rests on the grass nearby. “You sure took your time, kid. Come on, sit down.” 

_Kid._ So it’s going to be one of those nights, then. Ciro decides to take his chances and remains standing. “I’m sorry, _patrón_ _,_ something came up.” 

Lalo doesn’t say anything for a moment, as his gaze travels down to Ciro’s hands, still suspiciously dirty. He looks amused. “Still haven’t learned how to handle horses after all these years, huh? They give you trouble again?” 

“As always, _patrón_ _.”_ Feeling a flush begin to creep its way across his cheeks, Ciro tries to deflect the topic. He gestures toward Lalo’s packed bag. “So, going up North then.”

“Yeah, like I said earlier.” Lalo leans back in his chair. The flames send shadows dancing across his face. “Got some stuff to take care of in Albuquerque.” He drawls out the name slowly, then scatters it into the air with a burst of laughter. “What a mouthful.” 

“How long will you be away this time, _patrón_ _?”_

A small smirk curls across Lalo’s face. “What, you gonna miss me?” 

“You know I will.” If he were braver, Ciro would have flashed his boss an accusatory glare. But he must look displeased nonetheless, because the laughter falls from Lalo’s face. He straightens up with an expression of disdain. Ciro anticipates the change but it still catches him off guard. 

“Listen, I don’t make the rules, Ciro. And anyway, I can’t stay here forever. You know that about me.” 

He thinks about his boss flitting from place to place, chasing excitement and novelty, the windows of his car rolled all the way down and the breeze making waves through his gelled hair.

This is not going the way that Ciro has intended. He falters. “Of course, _patrón_ _,_ but it’s just…you spend so much time away _._ I hardly see you anymore.” 

And there is the crux of the issue gnawing away at him. Ciro resists the urge to wrap his arms around himself in the unusually chilly air. Lalo doesn’t comfort him, doesn’t touch him. The distance between them has been growing, slowly carved out like a canyon, and Ciro closes his eyes to stop tears of frustration from surfacing.

_Couldn’t they find someone else to go instead of you?_ He swallows back the question he wants to ask. Instead, he throws out another one. Arguably more risky and perhaps even childish, but he’s very familiar with self-sabotage. “Why should I stay, _patrón,_ if you aren’t even here half the time?” 

Once he opens his eyes, he sees Lalo rising from the chair. He braces himself - for what exactly, he doesn’t know. 

The firelight barely reaches Lalo as he comes to stand in front of Ciro – all shadow and surging impatience and only the slightest hint of sympathy. 

“Because you are still _mi cielito_ until I say otherwise.” And with that, Lalo turns away, clearly dismissing him. 

With the efficiency of someone well-versed in being unwanted, Ciro retreats back into the house. He lingers near the door, half-hoping Lalo will follow him inside. Instead, with a strange sorrow bubbling up within him, he watches his boss put out the fire and head for the back gate with his bag, without saying goodbye.

* * *

Ciro had always liked summers in Mexico. Lying underneath the pale, bleached-out sky mottled with clouds, as the stray dog they had picked up off the streets curls up beside him. Being draped in a thick heat that sprawled into every corner of the house. Even simply watching the flies buzz lazily around the freshly harvested vegetables in their baskets. The days felt endless, dripping from one hazy afternoon to the next, and time seemed to move only on his command. 

When he had tried to explain this feeling to his mother, she merely shook her head with a weary but fond smile. “Always filling your head with all this nonsense, _mijo!_ Why don’t you go and help your papa with the harvest?” 

It wasn’t that there had been a lack of love among his family. Ciro had simply been bored of the routine. He looked forward to the times he could spend daydreaming – perhaps at the crack of dawn, when the pastel sky still contained the remnants of stars. He spent days on end crouched over in the dirt, hands grimy from picking the crop, his father behind him calling for him to hurry up, as the humid air broiled around them all. He convinced himself that hard days of toil out in the fields, as his parents were resigned to, weren’t going to be in his future. 

The last summer he ever spent with his family, a few months shy of his seventeenth birthday, a strange man had arrived at their home. Ciro had peeked outside from behind the door, where he’d been hiding from his younger sister in an impromptu game of hide-and-seek, and saw the man greet his parents. He spoke in a slow, gravelly voice, and was wearing a loose shirt and hat to block the sun. He held a cigar in his hands and had a silver pendant around his neck that glinted as it caught the light.

Ciro watched as the man extended a hand towards his father, holding a wad of money. Much more money than he had ever seen in one sitting. “For your trouble,” the man said, pressing the cash into his father’s palm. His father accepted it, rifling through the cash in amazement. His mother, however, had begun weeping, fixing a terrified gaze upon the rich stranger.

The man caught Ciro’s eye and beckoned him over. He had handed Ciro his cigar, ordered him to take a puff. Ciro inhaled as much as he could before the sharp and burning smoke caused him to cough violently. The man laughed cruelly, and as if that had been some sort of test, asked Ciro if he wanted to come work for his family. “Consider it. You will get to live in a nice _hacienda_ , and your family here has been well-compensated.” 

Eyes watering from the smoke, Ciro glanced back at his mother, teary-eyed and trembling, and at his sister who had approached them from within the house, seemingly disappointed that her brother hadn’t tried to hide in a better place. He eyed the money in his father’s hands. 

He had agreed to leave with the man, thinking that any change couldn’t possibly harm him too much - and in retrospect, he supposed that he had Hector Salamanca to thank for his addiction to cigarettes from that point on. 

A few days later, he had stood in front of a quiet, sprawling estate surrounded by bushes and trees blooming with flowers – a world away from the shabby little village he had lived in until now. That was almost seven years ago, and he hadn’t gone back to visit his family since.

He was introduced to the other guards – Miguel, Raul, and Geraldo. While the latter two left him alone for the most part, from the start he quickly came to know Miguel as a trickster of sorts. The older man seemed to have an obsession with playing pranks on him, and when Ciro asked Yolanda, the household cook, about this, she simply offered him a warm smile and explained that they all treated each other like family so it probably wasn’t something to worry about. 

All that time, their boss hadn’t yet been around, but according to Yolanda he often left on trips so his absence wasn’t unusual. The first time Ciro actually met him, Miguel had been in the middle of convincing Ciro that he should try riding one of the resident horses. He supposed that he should have recognized the ripe opportunity for another prank. He had ended up seated atop the tallest horse, grasping a set of reins that separated completely from the bridle once he gave the tiniest of tugs, leaving him with a useless piece of leather in his hands and an animal that seemed suspiciously excited to buck him face-first into the grass. 

Clinging on for dear life, he barely noticed the man approaching in the background until he had walked calmly over and, to Ciro’s immense embarrassment, plucked him out the saddle and set him on the ground. 

“Miguel, you know that’s not funny,” the newcomer admonished the other guard, even as a playful smirk lit up his own face. 

Miguel dipped his head, still faintly laughing. “Sorry, I meant no disrespect, _patrón_ _.”_ He gave another glance at Ciro, before leaving the scene of the crime. Now that they were alone, Ciro was able to get a good look at his rescuer.

The man was a few inches taller than him, looking on the young side of middle-aged, with loosely styled black hair and a neat moustache, a face that crinkled when he smiled, and deep brown eyes that were somehow both dispassionate and eagerly warm in equal measure. He was dressed distinctly differently from everyone else in the household, donning a light blue paisley button-up tucked into dark jeans and a pair of black boots, scuffed with dust. A simple gold chain hung from his neck, reminding Ciro of the one that Hector Salamanca had worn. 

So this must be his nephew. 

“Like what you see, huh?” the man asked, and Ciro jerked his head back up as he realized that he must have been obviously ogling his _new boss_. _Dios mío,_ as if this day could get any worse.

“I’m sorry, _p –_ _patrón_ _.”_

The man laughed. “Relax, I’m just joking with you! You’re the new kid _Tio_ Hector found for me, right? What’s your name?”

“Ciro.” 

“Well, welcome to my house, Ciro! My name is Eduardo Salamanca – Lalo for short.” And with that, Lalo had grabbed his arm and ushered him inside the house for a couple of drinks, and Ciro realized just how much he couldn’t shake the feeling of the man’s hands on his own body, even if it had lasted for only a second. 

* * *

The day forever imprinted into his memory had begun just like any other. Ciro had woken up hours before the sunrise, a habit from his days working in the fields, and dutifully made his way outside to begin his shift guarding the property. 

It had only been a week or so since Raul, the guard normally patrolling this early, had discovered him awake and asked not-at-all-desperately if they could exchange shifts; the other guard had reassured him that whoever took the early morning shift would rightfully possess “the biggest balls in all of Chihuahua”. Ciro had then been left to simmer in his own amusement as Raul promptly ran back to his bedroom to sleep for the entire next day. 

Regardless of whatever incentive the other man had meant to offer, Ciro found that he did enjoy being alone in those early hours, as the darkness slowly faded around him and as he watched for that sliver of orange and pink dawn spreading across the horizon. After a few months of settling in, he felt that he was finally starting to adjust to life here.

And then that day, right after stepping outside into the darkness, he had run straight into Lalo, leaning against the fence and observing the horses out in the field. 

Ciro leaped backwards as if burned. “ _P_ _atrón_ _!_ I - I’m sorry to surprise you.” 

“What are you doing up at this hour, Ciro?” Lalo asked, eyes also lit up with mild shock. “Can’t sleep?” 

“It’s an old habit,” Ciro supplied hurriedly. “I always got up early to work.” He left out the part about his daydreaming – _that_ was certainly not information anyone needed to know. 

And with that, it was like a switch had been flipped within the other man. “Well, would you look at that.” Lalo turned to face him proudly. “A fellow insomniac! How lucky for me!” 

And without further warning, Lalo clapped his hands together. “Hey, now that we’re here, let’s go do something fun! You ever learn how to drive, kid?” 

He shook his head apprehensively, and an excited grin flitted across the other man’s face. “Great, I’ll teach you!” Lalo took Ciro by the arm and dragged him over to the garage, where a multicolored assortment of cars were parked. Ciro listened as Lalo introduced him to each one, spewing out names and model numbers that frankly flew right over his head. But one caught his eye immediately, the only silvery-white car that stood out among the darker vehicles. A giant flaming bird was emblazoned across the hood. _That’s the 1974 Pontiac Firebird,_ his boss had called it. _Custom paint job too. What a beauty!_

“Pick your poison!” Lalo commanded. 

Twenty minutes later, Ciro had been strapped into the driver’s seat of the sleek car, gripping the steering wheel with both hands, nervously tapping on the accelerator as Lalo chattered instructions from the seat beside him. “You have to hold it down to accelerate, Ciro. Just slam your foot down! Harder, _harder!”_

Eventually, they had made their way out of the sleepy suburbs and found themselves on a road winding through the deserts of Chihuahua, still cast into darkness. They drove past rolling sand dunes, past clusters of bushes and cacti. As the sky began to lighten, Ciro could see the mountains looming in the distance, half-obscured by the hazy dust clouding the horizon.

He began to relax, taking in the desert’s vast beauty. He had never seen anything like it before.

“Hey, let’s get off the road, this is boring,” Lalo complained, startling Ciro by reaching over and jerking the steering wheel to the right. The car veered off the concrete and plowed right into the sand. 

“ _P_ _atrón_ _,_ I think it would be safer if we stayed back there,” Ciro protested fruitlessly. But then Lalo asked “You really wanna practice driving or not?” and put an arm around the back of the driver’s seat, which Ciro desperately tried to ignore. He couldn’t possibly be ruffled that easily, right? 

With a sudden surge of defiance, Ciro hit the accelerator again, and over the revving of the engine he heard Lalo shouting encouragement. “Finally, you’re getting it!” The Firebird kicked up great clouds of sand as they roared off towards the mountains. The sun was starting to peek over the horizon now, and its reflection glinted sharply off the rearview mirror. 

The mountains parted in front of them to form a deep canyon, painted with shadows on one side and with golden sunlight on the other. With Lalo spurring him on, Ciro drove them straight down the middle, reveling in the thrill of the air whipping in his face, the engine humming powerfully underneath him. He almost felt giddy.

And then, as they emerged out of the shadows, the ground dropped from underneath them and the rocky canyon walls suddenly pulled back to reveal the sprawling blue sky on either side. There was no time to put the car in reverse or turn it around, and so Ciro could only send the car spiraling down the steep slope, panic blazing through his mind. “Okay, just ease up a bit!” Lalo yelled, and then he made the mistake of putting a hand on Ciro’s knee, and it became very clear that everything was headed down the wrong direction.

Nerves jolting at the sudden contact, Ciro aimed his foot for the brakes but missed. They continued hurtling forward, gaining speed, and by the time Ciro got his bearings back they were already back on flat ground. A boulder appeared out of nowhere on Ciro’s side of the car, and he quickly turned the steering wheel to avoid crashing. The side of the car just barely scraped against the rock, leaving an ugly mark on the pristine white surface – they listed dangerously off to one side, making a beeline straight for the canyon wall. 

“Hit the brakes!” And then, ignoring his own order, Lalo practically threw himself out of his seat and into Ciro’s lap as he grabbed the steering wheel and twisted. They swerved away and managed to avoid a full impact, and Ciro knocked his chin painfully against Lalo’s elbow as they skidded back out into the open desert.

Somehow through the chaos – and despite the fact that his boss was so unhelpfully close to his face – not that he was aroused by that, not at all – Ciro got his foot onto the brakes just in time. He slammed his foot down hard, and they were both thrown forward against the dashboard as the Firebird screeched to a sudden, grinding stop through the unsettled dust.

“ _P_ _atrón_ _,_ I...I don’t think driving is for me,” he admitted. He squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for his boss to lay into him for nearly wrecking his beloved car. 

“Are you _kidding_ me? _That’s_ what _I_ call a joyride!” Lalo whooped, slapping Ciro on the arm, and despite himself Ciro couldn’t stop his own smile from forming – at least partially because it seemed he wasn’t in trouble. 

“Now, don’t tell me you didn’t enjoy that!” With a chuckle, Lalo let go of the steering wheel and straightened up in his own seat. 

He seemed to notice Ciro trembling slightly as the last vestiges of adrenaline wore off. 

“Come on, Ciro! Life’s all about the excitement! What’s to fear about that?” 

And without further warning he swiftly closed the gap between them. Ciro let out a slight gasp as he felt Lalo’s lips on his own, felt Lalo’s hands running through his hair and roaming down his chest and setting fire to his skin even through the fabric of his shirt. Lalo’s tongue pressed experimentally against his mouth, and Ciro tipped forward to welcome it, his hands coming to rest on top of Lalo’s thighs.

When Lalo eventually pulled away, something akin to grief welled up inside him. 

“Did I surprise you, _mi cielito?”_ Lalo licked his lips and grinned. Trying desperately to contain the burning both in his cheeks and behind his eyes, Ciro struggled to form words. 

“Nobody…nobody has ever…”

Lalo laid a hand on the back of his neck in a kind of caress. “Like I said, nothing to fear, right?” The soft words soothed his confusion, if only for a little while. 

It wasn’t until they got back on the main road that Lalo had leaned over and crooned in his ear “You free tonight?”, as if he didn’t already know that Ciro had absolutely nothing assigned to do that night, and with a swooping sensation in his stomach, part excitement and part anxiety, Ciro found himself nodding. 

It took every ounce of self-control he possessed afterwards to remain focused on driving within the lane. Once they were back in civilization, Ciro ran a red light. He drove them back home with cars honking furiously in their wake, as Lalo’s laugh rang in his ears. 

The very memory causes a swell of longing within him even now. Thinking back, if Ciro had to pinpoint the exact moment he started falling for his boss, this would have been it. 

* * *

After Lalo leaves, the weeks begin to blur together, and Ciro gets used to spending the winter nights alone. As he always does. 

Everyone in the household understands that their boss often leaves for extended periods of time. It’s what comes of him now being the head of the Salamanca family and, even before that, being one of the highest ranking officials in the cartel (or so he liked to brag). This time around, he had given them fairly little explanation other than the fact that he’s heading up to El Paso and then swinging by Albuquerque to supervise operations there, so he might not be back for some time. 

It’s already been three months with no word from him, and Ciro often finds himself lingering on their last conversation by the fireplace far more frequently than he should.

He tries talking to the others but the guards merely rebuke his concerns. And if it’s possible, they start hanging around him even less, almost as if they’re resentful of his relationship with the boss. Yolanda pats him on the back and reassures him that Lalo will return, like he always does. Cecilio tells Ciro that his worry is unfounded and urges him to relax. 

And so Ciro quietly leaves the house in the few hours before dawn, swiping his pack of cigarettes from the kitchen countertop. The snow that had fallen overnight catches him by surprise; after all, it’s the tail end of February. He ends up outside, ankle-deep in snow, gazing up at the onion-bright moon and coldly glittering stars. The acrid smoke curls around him, and the smell lingers in his hair afterwards like a wreath.

His addiction was something that had slowly built up over the years, a side effect of stress. The first time that Lalo had caught Ciro turning off the stove, a lit cigarette dangling from his mouth, he had been merciful. He simply snatched the cigarette and stamped it out with the heel of his boot. That time, he hadn’t even been angry at Ciro for lighting up indoors – he simply explained patiently, “It’s not good to keep up this smoking habit, Ciro.” 

Of course he knows it isn’t good. But it’s the only thing that helps. Especially now, with Lalo gone off on some cartel business that he never confides with the rest of them. 

His mother, when he was young, had once admonished him about taking risks. She told him the tale of Icarus, how he ignored his father’s warnings about flying too close to the sun, and how he lost his life because of that. “Stop seeking things out of your reach, _mijo_.” But of course, that hadn’t stopped Ciro from leaving his parents and sister behind to become a bodyguard for someone of the Salamanca family, the source of so many horror stories told to misbehaving children in his hometown.

He remembers Lalo’s smirk upon first discovering Ciro wandering the grounds at night. _A fellow insomniac? How lucky for me!_ He remembers their near car crash, their breaths coalescing in the early morning air. He had made the fateful choice back then to follow his boss back into his den, to become bound to this place for even more than just the pay. 

_You ready for me, Ciro?_ Lalo had crowed as Ciro lay gasping for air beneath him, his pulse thrumming in his ears and his erection throbbing painfully in the other man’s grasp. He had barely been able to spare energy for a tentative nod before Lalo was preparing him, then thrusting into him, and a hoarse sound erupted from his throat at the same moment his eyes began tearing up from the feeling of being wanted.

The gaping sky above him eventually gives way to a watery sunrise. Ciro wanders out the front gates and faces the desolation before him. The white and windswept road, the trees with their branches exposed to the bitter chill of winter, all the sharpness and clarity he doesn’t want to see. 

He crushes the used cigarettes into the snow to put them out and dispose of the evidence of his loneliness, before heading back inside. 

The season rolls over from winter to spring, and there’s still no news. Some days, when it gets exceptionally chilly, he ends up lurking around in Lalo’s private study. He hasn’t seen his boss do any actual work inside the room, but the room exists nonetheless, and Lalo obviously cares enough about it to keep it organized (or more likely, to have Yolanda keep it organized). There’s a small fireplace on the opposite wall that Ciro lights, casting shadows on the walls that move like water. Next to him is a window through which he can see the garden, soaked in the relentless downpour of spring rain. 

The desk isn’t fancy but it’s made of wood that looks and feels expensive – not that Ciro would know exactly. It contains some books stacked neatly off to the side, several rolls of cash, an assortment of pens. The bell that usually sits there is missing.

There’s also a slip of paper on the desk containing some notes Lalo had no doubt written before leaving. Ciro can see a name traced out using red pen in Lalo’s handwriting: _Ignacio Varga._ The letters loop into each other like red thread against the cream-colored paper. It takes Ciro a minute before he recognizes where he had heard that name before.

Two years ago, deep into the month of August, they had received an unannounced visit from Hector Salamanca, whom Ciro had learned to address as Don Hector. Ciro had dug up the fanciest shirt he owned - not difficult, seeing as he didn’t own much clothing - and quickly scampered outside to escort the don from his vehicle and bring him into the house.

From the front door, Lalo rushed over to embrace his uncle. “ _Tio!_ I wasn’t expecting you! What’s the occasion?” 

“To see how my favorite nephew is doing! Do I need any other reason to visit?” Hector’s rumbling voice carried throughout the yard. Ciro, fumbling with the two heavy bags that he had retrieved from the car, quietly set them just inside the doorway. He paused briefly, not sure if he would be dismissed or not, but then Hector summoned him with a careless wave and he rejoined the pair outside in the yard. 

Hector continued, “Well, there is something actually. Tuco is in jail.” 

“Oh man, what’d he do this time?” Lalo snickered. But at his uncle’s pointed stare, he sobered quickly. “I mean, that’s too bad. What happens now? Are we promoting his associate? What’s his name…No-Daze?” 

“There’s a man, Ignacio Varga, trusted to take over for him, but I’m going up there myself instead.” Hector narrowed his eyes. “The people Tuco trusts are questionable.” 

“ _Ig-na-cio_.” Lalo drew out the name thoughtfully, savoring it like he was tasting something new. He shrugged and turned his attention back to his uncle. “Tuco didn’t tell me he got a new guy. What do we know about him, _Tio?”_

Hector smiled grimly. “He’s been there for years, Lalo, and your cousin talks about him all the time _._ You just don’t pay enough attention.”

“I swear, Tuco never told me,” Lalo insisted. “Is there something special about Ignacio that he didn’t want me to know?” 

It was Hector’s turn to shrug. “Fuck if I know. Tuco says he’s reliable, a good second-in-command.” After a short pause, Hector continued in a slightly darker tone. “Smart. Does things carefully.” 

Lalo remained quiet as he considered the critique. His response was carefully measured out with just enough skepticism to match his uncle’s, and a hint of optimism. “Well, if he did work that well under Tuco, maybe with some more supervision we’ll be able to bring him up the ranks.”

Hector scoffed, as if the mere thought of someone not from the Salamanca family being able to ascend through the cartel annoyed him.

“Anyway, we can continue this inside, _Tio.”_ Lalo gestured toward the front door, but Hector held up a hand to stop him.

“In a moment, _sobrino._ I’d like to talk to this young man first.” And to Ciro’s astonishment, Hector pointed right at him. 

Once they were alone, Hector turned his unreadable gaze onto Ciro. “So after all these years, my nephew decided to keep you,” he growled. “What’s your name?”

“Ciro,” he responded quickly. “It’s good to see you again, Don Hector.”

He watched as Hector reached into his coat pocket, pulled out a brand new cigar, and lit it. He held it out to Ciro, mirroring their very first encounter a lifetime ago. Unfazed, Ciro accepted the offering and inhaled a mouthful of the smoke. 

An odd smile appeared on Hector’s face, as if marveling at the improvement. “Looks like you’re adjusting to life here pretty well, aren’t you? You still go back to your mama and papa?” 

“Sometimes, when I can.” The lie bloomed bitter on his tongue. 

“Good. Family is everything, young man.” 

They stood there a while in silence, gazing out into the yard dappled with sunlight, before Ciro asked the question that had been eating away at him. 

“Please forgive me, Don Hector, but why did you find me in the first place?” 

“Do you regret that I did?” Hector replied sternly, and that’s the absolute end of that line of questioning. “You should be thanking me. I gave you a chance to be someone.” 

And then Hector had eyed him carefully, sweeping him over from top to bottom. Suddenly self-conscious, Ciro dipped his gaze downward. He felt like he needed to apologize for something. 

“But really, you’re just another one of Lalo’s playthings, huh? Another pretty face to look at.” 

The blunt statement caught Ciro off guard. _Plaything?_ “Sorry, Don Hector, I don’t understand.” 

Hector’s momentary approval seemed to evaporate, and for the first time Ciro looked into that stony gaze and felt fear. 

“I raised him to do well for us in the business, and he has. So if there’s anything not normal about him I stay out of it. But I’ve seen it all before. Trust me, young man. I didn’t bring you here to be his fucking _lover.”_

After Hector left a few days later, Ciro had questioned Lalo. As they sat in front of the TV, Lalo casually stroking his hair every now and then, he had found himself unable to pay attention to the movie they were watching. It was an American romantic comedy, and the Spanish subtitles flickered onto the screen almost too quickly for him to read.

“What are you thinking about, _mi cielito_?” Lalo purred, dragging his fingers lazily down Ciro’s back. 

He swallowed down his apprehension. Like salt, the memories of Hector’s words left him feeling shriveled, inadequate as they bristled to the forefront of his mind. “I asked Don Hector why he chose me to come here.” 

“And?” 

“He said that I’m just… another pretty face to keep around, _patrón_ _.”_ Ciro closed his eyes, as if his entire life had led up to his moment, waiting for Lalo’s verdict.

Lalo snorted. “Well, I mean, that’s _objectively_ true but come on, Ciro. You think I’m that shallow?” He blinked at Ciro innocently. 

“But Don Hector – ”

“Don’t worry about him.” Lalo gave an affectionate sigh. “ _Dios mío, Tio_ , always lurking around in our lives like a shark. Bless him.” 

“But _patrón_ , he said he didn’t want me here to be your – ” Ciro stopped just short of admitting what they had never discussed. The full extent of their relationship.

Lalo stretched, slowly and luxuriously. “Ciro, why don’t you quit stalling and let’s go put your mouth to better uses than asking these silly questions.” Not annoyed or angry. Just bored. He leaned back and let Ciro undo his pants, pull them down to his ankles. And as Ciro wrapped his lips around Lalo’s cock, fingers curled securely around the base, he briefly glanced upwards to check for any reaction. He couldn’t see anything marring that infuriatingly serene expression. The movie continued blaring in front of them, filling the room with the laughter and sweet nothings that neither of them could supply.

And so they inched further into that period of their lives when things started to become lukewarm.

And in hindsight, Ciro might have paid closer attention to that spark in Lalo’s eyes as he, full of wonder, had mouthed the name of the mysterious Ignacio Varga, _born from fire._

Ciro doesn’t know how long he has been in the room, but eventually Yolanda finds him there, holding a framed photo of the Salamanca family in his hands. “What are you doing here, _mi niño?”_ she asks, even though it’s quite obvious. She glances down at the photo that he’s gripping, a photo that showcases Lalo and all of his cousins, sitting in a row on a schoolyard bench as if they had gotten in trouble. Lalo is the only one smiling at the cameraman. 

“Cecilio was asking for you,” Yolanda says gently. “It might help take your mind off things.” 

But Ciro knows it won’t.

He will never forget the day that they received news of Don Hector’s illness. Lalo, the man who could never stop talking, had lapsed into stunned silence, and nothing Yolanda or anyone else in the household said could shift his mood. A few days later, his cousins Marco and Leonel had dropped by on their way up to Albuquerque, and Ciro watched as the three of them stood outside, heads bowed and quietly talking amongst themselves. A light rain was falling around them, and with his shirt clinging to his body Lalo had seemed smaller, like something within him was snuffed out. He hadn’t gone with his cousins to visit their uncle, as if he didn’t want to confirm the tragedy with his own eyes. 

Ciro had watched Lalo mourn his uncle, as his life became halfway gone. How strange it had been to see grief capture Lalo in its ugly claws the same way it captures mortal men. 

“Yolanda, does – ” And with a start, Ciro realizes that at the center of his self-deception, there has always been a certain security in constantly calling the man _patrón_ _,_ as if admitting that’s all he is and ever will be, as if Ciro doesn’t need to worry about their relationship beyond boss and servant. He hasn’t actually _said_ Lalo’s name out loud before. It feels foreign like sand in his mouth, belonging to a separate world, a desert up North.

He starts again. “Lalo does care about us, doesn’t he?”

He thinks Yolanda might be confused or even insulted that he would even ask such a question about their boss. But instead she speaks gently, as if afraid to spook him. “Of course he does, Ciro. He would die to protect us. We’re all family.” 

She seems so certain and he desperately wants to believe her. But as he tries to reconcile all the pieces of this man he’s seen over the years - the boss and the thrill-seeker, the lover and the conqueror – he isn’t so sure where in the mess of contradictions he should put “the protector”. All he can see is Lalo, glassy-eyed and tight-lipped, raising his drinking flask to the moon in honor of days long gone. And Ciro hadn’t comforted him then. He didn’t know how.

And with an ache that numbs him to his core, Ciro wonders what else Lalo hasn’t shown him.

He rubs some dust off the corner of the picture frame and puts it back onto the desk, next to the note.

* * *

March comes and goes, and by some stroke of luck it’s Ciro who finds the butterfly, tangled in the barbed wire. He tries to get a closer look, almost not believing that an insect could be so unlucky as to spear itself on something designed to deter humans. He hasn’t even seen a butterfly in years, it seems, not since the time he had gone sightseeing with Lalo.

A few days before his twentieth birthday, he had found the audacity to ask Lalo if he could accompany him up north. “Please, _patrón_ _?”_ he pleaded. “Take me on your next trip! I just want to know more about the business.” 

Lalo merely regarded him with amusement, eyeing him from behind a bag of chips that he periodically reached into. “Don’t lie, Ciro. It’s really _me_ you want to spend time with, isn’t it?” 

They had decided on a compromise: a road trip down to Michoacán to watch the flight of the monarchs. Mexico was knee-deep into this year’s migration, and back when he lived with his parents Ciro had sometimes seen the butterflies fluttering around the long rows of crops, forlorn and lost as they tried to find their way home. His sister used to wait outside for hours with a small jar, hoping to trap one of the insects. But their wings had always moved too fast for her stubby fingers to grab ahold of. She always returned to him empty-handed and teary-eyed, asking if he could help. 

When he first made the suggestion, Lalo had let out a shocked guffaw. “ _Butterflies,_ really?” And upon searching up the sanctuary where they were frequently found (“Seriously Ciro, a _sixteen hour_ drive? Don’t I do enough for you fools around here?”), he almost put his foot down on the entire thing.

But upon seeing Ciro’s wounded expression, he caved. 

Three days later, they had driven up into the mountains, enveloped in the crisp autumn air and blanketed by the deep blue sky. Due to the elevation, the asphalt road was covered with the faintest hints of overnight frost. Bundled in a thick jacket that Lalo had lent him, Ciro stepped out of the car and onto the path that gracefully curved upwards along the rocky slope and into the forest. The thin ice crunched beneath their feet as they made their way towards the sanctuary. 

Once they entered the forest, Ciro could already spot the insects gathering in the trees. He was forced to duck as a passing swarm swirled through the air overhead, but Lalo reached up towards them, unbothered. When Ciro looked up again, he saw Lalo holding one of the insects, thumb and index finger clasped tightly around its wings. 

“What do you think?” Lalo asked him serenely, holding up the butterfly as it worked vigorously to free itself from his clutch. “Might make a pretty decoration, no?” 

As Ciro stared at the struggling insect, he thought of how easily it might tear its own wings trying to escape. He was overcome by emotion, and laid a hand on Lalo’s arm. “Could you let it go, _patrón_ , please?” 

Lalo rolled his eyes in mock exasperation. “I’m joking, Ciro, don’t worry!” He released his captive, and it fluttered up into the canopy of leaves above, vanishing from sight among the greenery. 

They continued onwards, with Lalo resting a hand on the small of Ciro’s back. They eventually reached a clearing which was bordered on one side by a sheer drop in the rock face, which led into the yawning canyon below. All along the slope, the trees glistened with opaque hues of amber and orange in the sunlight as the butterflies hung themselves from the leaves, proudly displaying their elegant wings. From far away the entire forest looked to be up in flames, and Ciro was caught in the beauty of it all. 

He wondered why he bothered to care so much about one single insect, when there was enough in this single sanctuary to blanket the entire mountainside. He imagined what it was like to be replaceable.

“Do you think they’re scared of dying?” Ciro murmured. 

A gentle melancholy had swept over him, the roots of which he couldn’t quite unearth. He tried to focus on the here and now, with the fresh air rushing into his lungs, the glittering tapestry of butterflies in front of him, and Lalo’s arms draped around his shoulders. At one point he found himself half-wondering if Lalo would want to fuck him in the backseat of the car, and if it was even warm enough to undress – but Lalo hadn’t asked anything of him. Even though he’d known Lalo for a few years by then, everything – from the impossibility of reading Lalo’s intentions to the uncertainty of why Lalo had wanted him in the first place – was still new to him. He had been so sure that with more time, things would fall into place. 

Ciro leaned back into Lalo’s embrace, felt the teasing laugh rumble through the other man’s chest. “Now you care about a couple of butterflies dying? You _feel_ too much, _mi cielito_. What am I supposed to do with you, huh?” Together, they watched as the remaining monarchs completed their journey, pulled from within by some primal instinct, by a desire for warmth and sunlight and the beckoning of their kin over thousands of miles. It almost made him miss home. 

Now, whenever the time he spends alone seems to go on for eternity, Ciro thinks back to the period before Hector’s stroke and before his relationship with Lalo began to weather away, when things were both blurry and all too bright, and wonders what he did wrong.

He retrieves a ladder to climb up the wall. The butterfly continues to struggle, trying to free itself, and to Ciro’s horror it appears that the wire has stabbed right through its thorax. With each flap of its bright wings, the barbs dig deeper. 

Ciro reaches over and slowly hooks his fingers around the insect’s small body. With his other hand, he pulls down on the wire, gently coaxing the barbs out. After a while, the butterfly is loose, and he scoops it quickly into his palm. It sits there, wings limp and losing their luster by the second. 

He watches it die in his hands.

* * *

Lalo returns from Albuquerque on a weekday, in a black SUV caked with dust from the winding drive down south, accompanied by a man wearing a shirt the color of red wine and looking like he wants nothing more than a very long nap. Ciro doesn’t know what to expect from either of them at first. He stands a little apart from the rest of the staff, wondering how his boss will introduce him to the newcomer he has brought back. Lalo lays a hand on the man’s shoulder, almost reverently, introduces him as Ignacio, and the world seems to blur before Ciro’s eyes. 

And then Lalo snaps at him to get the bags from the truck, calls him an asshole, and Ciro has to clear his head and struggle to hide his shame for forgetting that he is anything but a servant here. 

Once everyone settles down from their boss’s unexpected return, Ciro returns to his solitary patrol outside. He sees the two of them together in front of the garage, as Lalo leans over the hood of the car he’s fixing. He can’t hear what they’re saying, but Ignacio shakes his head resolutely in response to something Lalo brings up and instead of pressing the issue, Lalo simply accepts his refusal. 

Ciro wrenches himself away from the scene, tries to look anywhere else, up at the cloudless and glassy sky or over at the shed cracking slightly under the summer heat or at Cecilio’s plants that need trimming. 

“Hey.” He is startled by Ignacio’s voice, close by. The other man has walked towards him, and even though Ciro is taller than him he can’t help but shrink a little under that intense gaze. Had they seen him watching from a distance? 

“Lalo asked me to pick out one of his shirts for later. He said you’d know where they are.” 

Ciro leads him into Lalo’s bedroom. Ignacio opens the closet, lays a couple of shirts out onto the bed. Ciro’s stomach twists into a knot when he recognizes the shirt Lalo had worn when they had first met. It’s wrinkled and faded, clearly relegated to the back of the closet for some time.

Ignacio tries a few shirts on – blue, gold, green, purple. “Which one, do you think?” he asks Ciro. 

Ciro glances up at him, surprised that he would care to ask for his opinion. “I…don’t know, _señor._ Any of them could work for you.” He hazards a guess at the shirt that Lalo would most like, and holds up the flashy gold button-up with green, blue, and orange accents. Ciro hasn’t seen Lalo wear it before, but it seems like something bright and complex enough, like a mirror of the man himself.

“Definitely not,” Ignacio says, a little impatiently, as if the kaleidoscope of colors is a personal insult. He eventually settles on a black short sleeve covered in swirling floral patterns. He snatches up something for Lalo as well - a silky black shirt adorned with flowers that matches his own choice. 

Through the window Ciro can still see Lalo tinkering with the car, bathed in the sunlight filtering down through the trees. Off in the shadows, their Firebird sits untouched. 

Late in the afternoon, on his way to help Yolanda in the kitchen, Ciro walks past them in the living room, Ignacio with his head on Lalo’s shoulder as they watch something on the TV to celebrate their successful meeting with Don Eladio. It’s one of those old black-and-white shows that Lalo has never shown interest in before. Sometime during the intermission, they lean in for a kiss. Then Ignacio begins slipping off his pants, and Lalo swoops down to capture him in his mouth, and they both seem blatantly unconcerned with the fact that anyone can walk in and see them. 

Ciro’s throat closes up as he realizes what he has lost. From beside him, Yolanda looks up from the sink where she’s washing vegetables and sends him a sympathetic look. 

He cuts his thumb on accident. A drop of blood lands without fanfare on the cutting board, soaking into the moisture of the wood. He puts his finger in his mouth, sucks the wound dry. 

That night, Lalo doesn’t invite Ciro into his room. He’s also not in his usual position lounging in the chair near the fireplace, chin tilted back as he regards the heavens. As Ciro walks his customary route around the property, unease coiling within him, he decides to take a detour to Lalo’s room to check and see if he is alright. As expected, the door is unlocked, and Ciro cracks it open to peer into the darkness. 

Their clothes are strewn across the ground, and the blankets are draped haphazardly over the bed’s two occupants. And the way Lalo embraces Ignacio is reminiscent of a time when Ciro had been held in the same way, in the same bed. It’s been a while since he and Lalo had actually had sex, but he remembers clearly one of their last times together, a harsh reminder of what it’s like to be in the dying stages of something once so central. 

That evening, Lalo had been annoyed, that once-in-a-blue-moon annoyance that usually only arose when something happened to his family. Except this time, it was because the new servant, whom Ciro had been supervising, had forgotten to let his beloved horses out to graze. 

After watching his boss throw back several drinks over the course of ten minutes, and silently noting the fact that the servant in question was fleeing the house with his tail between his legs, Ciro had hesitantly offered to help Lalo release his frustration. He just hadn’t been prepared for the visceral lashing of something dormant coming back to life.

Face down in the pillow, stripped of all his bearings, his cock already shamefully hard, he had whimpered as Lalo slicked his fingers with lube, and deftly inserted them into his entrance. “You like this, huh?” Lalo challenged, working his fingers inside of him, and Ciro was barely able to hold still as the electric surge of adrenaline overtook him. The pressure was dizzying and made his legs go numb.

He had barely choked out an apology before Lalo removed his fingers, and Ciro could hear him applying more lube, this time to his cock. His breath hitched at the thought of what would come next. 

Lalo’s hands dug into his ribs, demanding that he flip over, and Ciro submitted himself to Lalo’s will like he had always done. He ended up on his back, and Lalo leaned down until their faces were so close together that Ciro could smell the faint sweetness of his breath. Their hips were barely touching, and he could feel Lalo’s erection rubbing against his. The heat washed over him, and his head swam.

He couldn’t help it. With tears gathering at the corners of his eyes, he ran a finger over Lalo’s lips, over the lines around his mouth, and then traced up towards his cheek. 

He realized it was the wrong thing to do when Lalo suddenly grabbed his chin and wrenched his head upwards, baring his throat like a predator going in for the kill. He felt fingers graze over the skin there, applying a gentle pressure, and a wave of desperation spasmed through him as he imagined those rough hands fixed around his neck, controlling the very air searing through his windpipe. 

“None of that, Ciro. I better not catch you slacking around here again, you hear?” 

An involuntary sob escaped him, at the mere fact that pleasure and punishment could be so intertwined. “Yes, _patrón_ , I – I won’t. Please, _please.”_ His voice had subsided to a mere whine now, and Lalo’s dark eyes burned with emotion. His hair, usually neatly slicked back, fell across his forehead in unruly curls. The years had added more lines to his face and the slightest swirl of gray to his hair, and the moonlight streaming through the window threw his silhouette into sharp relief against the darkness. 

For a split second, Ciro realized this was always how he would remember Lalo – crouched over him with a hand against his throat, lips almost touching his own, shaped like hollow hunger. 

And even as Ciro slung his legs over Lalo’s waist, and as Lalo adjusted his position and rested the tip of his cock against Ciro’s entrance, there was still a threat present on the other man’s tongue. “You know I don’t want to hurt you, Ciro. But you being my favorite doesn’t mean I won’t send you back to your family.”

“I know you...won’t,” Ciro gasped, and once again he feared he had said the wrong thing. 

In a single movement, Lalo buried himself all the way inside Ciro, and the once-familiar pressure exploded into the forefront of Ciro’s memory again. He was drowning, overwhelmed by the grinding of Lalo’s hips against his own, the long-extinct feeling of Lalo being inside him. The agonizing friction, the way his own skin melted under the blistering heat of Lalo’s. He let out a stuttering moan, and then Lalo’s mouth was on his, smothering the rest. The kiss was sloppy and vengeful and as Lalo sucked viciously on his bottom lip, Ciro felt the delicate skin there split. The raw throbbing sent twinges of pain along his jaw. 

“Please, I – ” He felt small and drained and just wanted _more_ – his life was built from contradictions, it seemed, and this was the biggest one of all. Upon hearing his cry Lalo began fucking him with renewed vigor, and then Ciro was spiraling out of control, with the startling feeling of fullness after so long being empty, the sensation of falling from the depths of the sky. Never knowing when to stop. As his back arched off the bed, he grabbed a fistful of the sheets, trying to ground himself in the moment.

“Oh look at you, Ciro…you really think you’re doing _me_ a _favor_ with this?” Lalo groaned, his voice wavering slightly, lingering like smoke in cold air. 

And Ciro worked desperately to stop his blood from rushing downwards, as panicked regret ghosted the edge of his mind. He reminded himself that he didn’t want it _like this_ , with Lalo disappointed in him – and then he thought about what little good it would do to protest. How it would hurt to lose his place, and how he really does have nowhere else to go. “ _P_ _atrón_ _,_ please – I’m sorry, I – _”_ he choked out, and then he was aware of a sharp pain as Lalo sank into him again, and he didn’t know if it was all in his head or not but _it had never hurt like this before._

His fall broke with this abrupt return to reality, and Ciro shattered, letting out a muffled cry as he came all over himself, spilling onto the sheets. It wasn’t long before Lalo followed him. 

He didn’t know how long they had lain there, Ciro still trembling, Lalo breathing shakily beside him. What might’ve been minutes or maybe hours later, he had felt Lalo gathering him into his arms, and wiping the tears from his cheeks. Lalo’s words were slightly slurred from the alcohol he’d drank earlier, spoken softly and with all the sweetness of years past. “I’m sorry, _mi cielito,_ for what I said... _No despediré la luz de mi vida.”_

And Ciro felt a burning ache, a surge of anger intermingled with grief, because he was intimately familiar with how Lalo could so easily switch between violence to romance. Because he knew its sole purpose was to keep him compliant. Lalo’s embrace was a snare and he kept falling into it, wrapping himself in those last vestiges of tenderness.

Any form of resistance has been leached straight from him. It’s why each time, in spite of the insults or withering glances, he still crawls back to Lalo, hollowed out, seeking forgiveness and shelter in his arms. And he doesn’t regret it. There’s a strange sort of comfort being held in those hungry jaws. To know that at least for a little while, you’re needed. Or so he had told himself.

And here is the ultimate refutation.

Ciro gently shuts the door, hoping that he hasn’t been spotted by anyone. But as he turns away and begins heading down the hall, he feels a hand come down upon his shoulder and he whips back around. Lalo towers over him, anger written all over his face, his eyes stormy. “What are you doing?” 

“Sorry _patrón_ _,_ I…didn’t mean to intrude, _”_ Ciro whispers, avoiding eye contact. “Just wanted to make sure you’re okay.” 

Lalo’s expression softens a bit, and the slow erosion between them stops for a moment. Ciro shivers as Lalo moves his hand up to rest against his face. “You’ve known me a long time, Ciro.” He tucks an errant curl of hair back into place behind Ciro’s ear. The touch is reminiscent of something Lalo might have given him years ago, beside the fence at midnight or across polished car seats or in a forest clearing dappled orange. 

_People fall out of love_ , his mother might say wisely, _it’s nothing to be ashamed about_. And to Lalo, there were people before Ciro, and there will undoubtedly be people after him as well. There’s no reason for Ciro to believe that he is the last one. 

But some part of him still wants to think that Lalo had always returned _for him._

Lalo is still talking. “…of all the shit you could worry about, don’t let it be my safety, come on,” he gripes, spreading his arms, and there’s a flash of his old self, that humor that Ciro often has trouble keeping up with. 

“How long will Ignacio be staying here?” he asks before he can work up the restraint to bite back his words. 

Lalo shrugs. “For as long as necessary. You might even get to know him pretty well, you know, if that sort of thing interests you.” 

Ignoring all the warning signs, Ciro presses further. “Why are you ignoring me, _patrón_ _?_ Do you still…want me here?” His throat twists painfully. He doesn’t want to hear the answer. He thinks about that dark bedroom, his hands twisting into the sheets, the flutter of panic when Lalo’s fingers close around him. And then the gentleness afterwards. 

_Why is pain inevitable in both his absence and presence?_

Lalo lets out a long-suffering sigh. “You forget what I said before?” he snaps. “You stay until I say you don’t. Don’t bring it up again.” And with a final unreadable glance, Lalo turns around and slinks back into his room. Ciro hears the click of the lock.

His parting words leave Ciro eviscerated, and he’s back in the desert canyon they had once driven through, had once kissed in. Except this time he’s bleeding out into the hot dust of an unforgiving wasteland. If he closes his eyes, he can almost envision the blood-orange sky, washed-out colors blending like tear stains, under which he and all his delusions would die. 

He imagines Ignacio facing Lalo directly - steady, unyielding, not afraid to say what’s on his mind. Not afraid to resist when he wants to. And Lalo gazing back at him with nothing short of ravenous fascination. 

Ciro realizes that perhaps Lalo has finally met someone who can match him, who can fight fire with fire. And maybe that’s better for him. Maybe that’s better for Ciro too. Under normal circumstances, he should be tired of the incessant leaping between emotional extremes, of the quiet nights spent consumed in worry and cigarette smoke. So then why does he continue onward along the same weary path?

Ciro returns to his room, forgoing the last few hours of his guard duty. He thinks about Lalo’s presence, sunk so deep within his very being that he’ll spend years trying to rid himself of the ashes. Perhaps it’s even worthless to try. As he curls up underneath the blankets, he notices the curtains fluttering gently in the breeze, and he’s suddenly reminded of the butterfly trapped within Lalo’s grasp, wings beating furiously, chasing desire until the very end. He closes his eyes, somehow feeling sick. 

Tomorrow, he’ll pick himself back up, figure things out. But for now, he gives in. 

His dreams flicker through the same scene over and over again. Walking in and seeing Lalo and Ignacio tangled together. Being invited into their arms. Being smothered, and then swallowed whole. 

And the ending is always the same. All three of them burning up under the heat of the sun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some translations: _Mi cielito_ most directly means “my little sky” or “my little heaven”. _No despediré la luz de mi vida_ translates to “I will not say goodbye to the light of my life”. And the chapter title is “don’t fly too close to the sun”. 
> 
> I have Chapter 2 written somewhat and would have liked to post it for Saturday’s “betrayal” prompt, but due to poor planning on my end and Ch 1 being so long (like twice as long as anything I’ve written before), I won’t be done by then :( I’ll post it as soon as I can!


	2. el fin de todas las cosas

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lalo is silent for a minute, before he leans toward Ciro and presses the knife into his free hand. His voice is dripping, seething with an emotion that rings through the car, anger cavernous and hollow. “Whoever gets to him first then, okay? _Se lo merece.”_
> 
> Or: Things get better before they get worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oops! Sorry this chapter took such a long time! It was a bit tricky to write but it’s done now (finally)! Nacho is a bit different than who we saw in 5x10 because I can’t have two scared nervous-energy-emitting boys here. 
> 
> Also, since I realized this might be confusing…most of the time the characters are speaking to each other in Spanish – besides Lalo and Nacho.

_When Ciro turned thirteen, his father took him into the back of their house, where he kept their family heirlooms, and pulled out a foot-long folding knife. Ciro watched curiously as his father flipped the knife open to show him the blade, six inches of polished steel extending from the wooden handle upon which their names of their ancestors were carved. He listened as his father told him the story behind this knife, and the lessons he should never forget._

_When he was finished, his father pressed the knife blade-first into Ciro’s hand. The steel felt like ice against the flat of his palm. “I want you to have this, mijo. Use it to remember.”_

_Ciro took the knife with him when he left home, but he hadn’t thought of it again until one day when he was cleaning his room, and he found it gathering dust in his bedside drawer. He pulled it out, and imagined his father guiding his fingers over the smooth handle. He traced his thumb over the engraved names, imagining all the people this weapon had belonged to before._

_He jumped as he heard the door open behind him. “Ciro, I’ve been calling for you. Think it’s funny to ignore me like that?” Lalo appeared next to him with a huff of disapproval, and then he noticed what Ciro was holding, and Ciro froze as he realized he had made a mistake. He glanced up at his boss, worried what his reaction would be._

_“Ciro.” Lalo admonished him, with a grin spreading across his face. “You do know it’s illegal to carry a knife around in Mexico, right? If someone rats on you, you could end up in jail.”_

_Ciro dropped the knife hastily back into the drawer. “I swear, I’ve never used it, patrón. I keep it safe in here.”_

_“Well, why bother hiding it since I know it exists?” Lalo snatched the weapon up and held it to the light. His eyes widened. “A navaja de muelles! Isn’t this one of the oldest Spanish fighting knives?”_

_Ciro flushed. “Yes, patrón. It’s from my father.”_

_“Oh, a family relic!” Lalo ran his fingers over the names engraved on the handle. “Tell me more."_

_Unsure of how much his boss truly wanted to hear, Ciro told him the same story he had heard from his father: how his great grandfather had fought in the War of Independence, carrying this knife on his hip as a promise to his family that he would return home safely. How his close friend had turned against their own side and brought the enemy right to them. How his friend had fought against him, and eventually took his life by springing the blade open and thrusting it into his side. How his blood had seeped into the thirsty ground, cracked under the sheer weight of all those who died in battle._

_“Well, that’s too bad,” Lalo mused, a minor look of disappointment on his face. “Should’ve kept his people in line.” He contemplated the still-folded knife in his palm._

_“You know, Tuco used to call me crazy for liking these antiques.” With a quick maneuver of his fingers, he sprung the navaja open, and the sharp click of the blade being released echoed through the otherwise silent room. To Ciro, it sounded oddly melodic, like the chirp of a cricket on a summer night, or the crackle of fallen leaves in autumn._

_“But I’m sentimental, you know?” Lalo spun the knife around in his fingers. The blade flashed over his wrists in a blur of silver steel, sliced cleanly through the column of dust motes filtering in from the window. Ciro watched him in awe. He knew that being a Salamanca meant you had to know your way around all sorts of weapons, but the way Lalo handled the navaja – with playful twists and an almost arrogant sense of showmanship – it seemed like he didn’t care at all for the dangerous potential of the instrument in his hands. The instrument that had killed his great grandfather with a simple flick of the wrist._

_“What would you have done, Ciro? If someone betrayed you like that?” Lalo twirled the knife one last time, then pointed it straight at him._

_“I don’t know, patrón.”_

_“Wrong answer!” Lalo moved closer until he stood right in front of Ciro, brought the blade to rest against Ciro’s chest and then, almost as an afterthought, lifted it up to his throat. Ciro’s breath quickened as the metal touched his skin._

_“Imagine me, your trusted associate, having the guts to threaten you. What next, hmm?”_

_Ciro wondered how much danger he would be in if he tried to disarm his boss. The thought didn’t seem particularly appealing. He offered Lalo a shaky smile. “Maybe I would just pray to Santa Muerte for safe passage over.”_

_“Santa Muerte! Do you hear yourself?” Lalo let out a short huff of laughter, before pulling the blade away and collapsing it with one hand. This time, it sounded like the clicking of handcuffs._

_“We all will be so honored to meet her eventually, Ciro, but until then? If someone chooses to go up against you, it’s simple!” He ran a finger up along Ciro’s cheek. Ciro imagined the steel lying against his skin instead, the warmth of blood cascading towards his chin – he shivered despite knowing the threat was gone._

_“You just teach them a lesson…and end them before they end you."_

* * *

In the weeks since Ignacio’s arrival, Ciro decides that it is best to keep his distance as much as possible, thinking it would be best not to interfere with whatever Lalo and Ignacio’s plans are. He starts spending more time in the kitchen with Yolanda, seeking comfort in her company and the knowledge that at the very least, he can be useful somewhere. But evidently the staff notice his withdrawal, however, and it’s Miguel of all people who takes him aside and demands that he pull himself together. “Come on, Ciro. We all know it’s only temporary. Things will go back to the way they were, I’m sure.”

It seems to take a lot of energy for him to grind out those words of reassurance, but Ciro latches onto them regardless.

And then one afternoon, Ignacio corners him in the guest room. “Are you avoiding me, Ciro?”

“No, _señor,”_ he protests, pressing himself against the edge of the bed to stay a respectable distance from the other man. “Please, I just don’t want to cause trouble.”

“And what trouble would that be?” Ignacio fixes him with that same intense stare that caused Ciro to shrink away the very first day they met. 

“I – really, _señor,_ I don’t want to presume, but – ” 

“Listen, just call me Nacho, okay? I’m not _patrón_ or _señor_ to you.” And with that, the man standing before him turns from Ignacio Varga, the fiery one, into simply Nacho, someone who looks weary for reasons that Ciro can’t pinpoint. And suddenly his stare looks less menacing, the tired slump of his shoulders more prominent, and he seems to draw himself away from the sunlight pooling on the ground in front of them. He seems like he doesn’t want to be here at all. 

Nacho continues, “And yeah, Lalo told me about you. Look, let’s call it a truce, alright? I’m not trying to interfere or anything. It wasn’t even my choice to come here.” 

“A truce?” Ciro is hit by unexpected shame. Had he been that obvious? “I didn’t mean to be rude, Nacho. I just – ”

The apology seems to make Nacho feel just as uncomfortable. “It’s okay, I get it. I just have a proposal.” Nacho leans against the wall, arms crossed. “I’d like to go on a trip with you sometime.” 

“Go on a trip? Like…like a date?” Ciro imagines Lalo glowering at him. He stammers, “I can’t, I don’t want anyone else, I’m sorry.”

Nacho puts his head in his hands, mumbles _goddammit_ under his breath. “No, not a date, Ciro. I just haven’t, you know, actually lived in Mexico for most of my life so if I’m gonna be here a while, might as well get someone to show me around.”

“Why ask me to take you?” Ciro asks, genuinely curious.

“You think Lalo hasn’t noticed you moping around? He wants us to get along,” Nacho responds. And then, he adds, “And I think we can both help each other get what we want”, and if Ciro detects a slight ominous tone to his words, he decides that he must be making it up. 

A few days later, they set out in one of Lalo’s cars, and arrive in downtown Creel after several hours on the road. It’s early evening by the time they arrive, and Nacho lets Ciro choose a restaurant for dinner. He picks a place that serves something he’s never tried before, pizza. Amused, Nacho asks, “Doesn’t it feel good to finally get out here?”, and Ciro shrugs in response, even though his answer is a resounding _yes,_ if only because he is no longer gazing out at the world from behind walls lined with barbed wire.

Lalo had been pleasantly surprised when they told him about their plans. “Look at that, my two favorite people getting along,” he had grinned, shooting a pointed look at Ciro. Telling him to behave. And then he winked at Nacho, off to the side. “If all goes well, we might be doing things a _little_ differently around here.” 

As Ciro cracks open the window of their hotel room, mouth burning slightly from the pizza they shared, he can see the entire town, full of orange and peach colors and outlined with sloping red roofs lightly traced in smoke, and the church rising above the other buildings, soft yellow and chalk-like against the darkening sky. At night he falls asleep to the wind rushing through the trees and the murmuring of the townspeople as they walk up and down the streets and the gentle tolling of bells in the distance. He feels the furthest away he’s been from home in a long time, and what a beautiful feeling it is, he thinks, to be here by his own choice. Safe.

* * *

In the early morning, they bundle up into the car again. The buildings of Creel give way to flat desert and then to golden scrubland, surging onward in gentle hills with sharp shadows in between, as Nacho drives them south towards their destination: the mountains in the distance, looking paper-thin and indigo against the pale sky. As they get closer, the mountains solidify into muted green and blues, and when they eventually step out into the parking lot to make their way onto the trail that will take them deep into the canyon, Ciro can see slivers of gold blending with the darkness, as the sun warms the slopes.

“So, this is the famous _Barrancas del Cobre_ ,” Nacho muses. “Copper Canyon.”

Sand and pebbles crunch beneath Ciro’s feet as he follows Nacho through the entrance to the trail. As they walk deeper into the canyon, the sand curves lazily, first taking them past a glassy lake, then into a loose forest with leaves that rattle in the wind, across streams and down wooden stairs and finally towards a steep shelf of the mountains they had seen previously. The bare rock towers above them, bronze in the sunlight, with purple shadows blended in.

“This is so different from Albuquerque,” Nacho says, gazing down at the land laid out before them. The only thing that separates them from a steep drop into the canyon below is a wooden railing, framed on either side by flowering creosote bush. Ciro runs a hand through the leaves, and the lemon-colored petals brush lightly against his skin. He opens his mouth to ask Nacho about what it’s like up north when –

“Fuck,” Nacho hisses, and Ciro turns quickly to see him stagger to the side. A second later, a bird lands on the edge of the wooden railing. Its body is a brilliant red color, with wings fringed in softer black feathers, and it cuts a sharp figure against the greens and yellows of the bush. As the bird swivels around, revealing a mask-like stripe extending from its back all the way across its eyes, it contemplates both of them with its beady stare. 

“Don’t need birds trying to kill me too, on top of everything,” Nacho sighs.

Ciro moves in for a better look.

“I think I’ve seen one of these before!” he tells Nacho, even though Nacho doesn’t ask, and probably isn’t even interested in learning too much about an animal that nearly took out one of his eyes. “My _abuelita_ told me she had always wanted to bring one back to the city with her, but she said the stress of captivity can make them lose their color.” He watches as the bird surveils its surroundings, a bright splash of red against the backdrop of sky and earth, where it belonged.

“What, you a bird expert now?” Nacho regales him with an amused glance.

Ciro shrugs. “I have a lot of free time.” He leaves out the fact that he had never had the chance to finish school, and that he had tried to crunch through the books Lalo kept in his study to make up for it as a result. One day he had come across a travel brochure that Lalo had picked up during one of his many trips up north, and flipped through it to marvel at the eye-catching images of the Birds of North America. One of them had been the Vermilion flycatcher, glaring up at him from the page with jewel-like eyes, looking identical to the bird perched before them now. He can still remember the passage by heart. _The Vermilion flycatcher has been described as being an almost hallucinogenic red color, with dark brown to grey plumage on their wings. They are opportunistic hunters, lying in wait on top of exposed vegetation to catch flying insects and other assorted prey…_

Nacho looks at the bird thoughtfully as Ciro recites the information to him. “Opportunistic hunters? Doesn’t seem to be doing much to me.”

“It’s waiting for the right moment,” Ciro replies simply.

The bird suddenly launches itself into the air, its grey-black feathers fanning out in preparation for flight, shockingly translucent, like lacewing against the deep blue sky. Ciro watches its path arc towards the trees in the canyon below, then back out into the open air, and he keeps watching as the bird becomes no more than a red dot above the jagged outline of the Sierra Madres on the horizon.

Beside him, Nacho reaches out toward the abandoned perch, where several bright feathers have been snagged by the bush during its take-off. He plucks one up and contemplates it, turning it over in his hands, watching as the color shimmers and changes in the sunlight. 

They continue hiking, and it’s afternoon by the time they reach a stopping point along the trail. Ahead of them, the rock curves gracefully down towards a flatter area of the canyon, where tall columns of stone spring up from the gray ground like outstretched fingers. They are knobbed and irregular, carved into regal shapes by wind and rain, and blanketed by moss. Some of the monoliths are bent, resembling people hunched over in prayer.

There’s a sign beside them, right where the rock drops away, that proclaims “Valley of the Monks” in Spanish. 

“So what can you tell me about this place?” Nacho asks, crossing his arms expectantly.

Ciro swings at Nacho with a piece of humor that his uncle had left him with the last time they had visited, back when he was way younger. “Well, the locals call this place _Bisabirachi,_ which means Valley of the Erect –”

“Really? Dick jokes?” Nacho interrupts, though Ciro is certain he can see a small smile float across his face. “I’d expect those from Lalo, sure, but you?”

Ciro can’t help but snort with laughter, as the myths he had conjured up of the infamous Ignacio Varga evaporate into the wind. “That’s actually about all that I know.”

“So when you told me you could be my tour guide, you just meant you could show me random birds and not the actual thing we came here for.” Nacho shakes his head in mock disapproval. “You’re certainly something, aren’t you?” 

“Well, if I had to guess…” Ciro glances up ahead towards the horizon, where the farthest monoliths appear to lean against the mountains. Something about the peaceful patience of the rock formations strikes him – reverent and unwavering beneath the crescent moon, which glimmers faintly opposite the midday sun. Here, time seems to stand still, and even the wind has died down, casting a stunning silence over the canyon that had previously been humming with life.

“If you believe in creation myths,” Ciro says, “the gods almost certainly created these rocks out of real people, probably their most loyal worshippers.”

“Do _you_ believe that?” Nacho replies, and Ciro can only think of how it would have been a kindness, to be safely sheltered in stone for the rest of time. 

He doesn’t know how long they stand there in silence, gazing out at the landscape, and by the time Nacho speaks again, the sun has begun its slow crawl westward.

“You said your grandmother lives in the city? Is it close to here?” 

“Not exactly, she’s all the way down in Guadalajara with my aunt and uncle.” Ciro pauses, then adds, “Well, not anymore. She died a while ago.” 

“Oh. I’m sorry.”

Ciro wrings his hands, not used to this sympathy. “Don’t be. We would always go down to see her every year.” Except the last time he had knelt in front of her _ofrenda_ had been seven years ago, with his family by his side. The lights and festivities of _Día de los Muertos_ had blazed in the crowded city streets, and some of that energy drifted over to the cemetery, illuminated by the candles laid out on the grass and the marigolds adorning each family’s altar and the gifts piled high on the side. But there was also that quiet dignity borne from remembrance as each family member took turns speaking to their loved one, as they built a bridge between their two worlds, living and _living elsewhere._

He had once asked Lalo what happened to victims of the cartel, if they were also honored in the way of their culture. Lalo had simply laughed and silenced him with a light kiss on his forehead, and the memories of kneeling in that Guadalajara cemetery scattered under his touch. “If I told you, you would just be upset, Ciro.”

Ciro decides to change the subject. “What’s it like up there?” he asks. “In Albuquerque.”

“Why do you ask?” Nacho says, shooting him a curious look.

“I still don’t know much about you,” Ciro points out. “And you said that we should become friends, right?” 

Nacho suddenly seems very interested in the distant rock formations. After a while, he finally says, “I’ve never been outside the city much, but from what I can tell, it’s shit compared to this place.”

“I’m sure it’s not too bad,” Ciro finds himself reassuring the other man. After all, Lalo had liked it enough up there to stay for almost half a year. 

“Yeah, well, beyond keeping track of my dealers and picking up keys of product, I don’t associate too many good things with Albuquerque. Maybe look in some travel brochures if you’re really interested.”

Ciro’s next question comes out before he can tell if it’s a good idea or not. “Maybe you can tell me what’s it like being in the business? I don’t really know much about it.”

Nacho gives him an oddly tired look. “Oh, you have no idea. I would gladly give it up if I could.”

“Does your family disapprove?” Ciro asks. “Because my family didn’t want me to go on this path, but I still did.”

Nacho turns away for a second. His shoulders shake with laughter. “You wouldn’t understand. My father more than disapproves of what I do. He’s basically lost all respect for me.”

And then, in a heartbeat, Nacho says something that shocks him. “If you really want to know what it’s like, I could take you up there and show you around.”

“You…want me to go back with you?” Ciro imagines stepping foot into a place he’s only ever seen before in dreams – in little scraps that Lalo has let slip when he returned home. All of a sudden, the forbidden land is within his reach. And that thought is jarring. “I don’t know, I’ve never left Mexico.”

Nacho hesitates slightly, before putting a hand on Ciro’s shoulder, as if he knows the real reason Ciro is reluctant. “Here’s some advice, Ciro. It’s not about what Lalo wants, it’s about what _you_ want. Things will only end badly if you keep submitting to him, trust me on that.”

Ciro isn’t sure how to respond to that, so he just offers Nacho a small smile in return, a murmured, “I’m sorry about your father.” He supposes it isn’t that bad, to have someone who understands what it feels like to be in a home with no exit.

As they start their descent back down the trail, Ciro glances back out at the landscape sprawled before them. The lime-colored moss and red lichens climbing over those rocks, eternally petrified in prayer. The mountains crinkling like foil in the distance, golds and browns bordering the canyon, as if the gods had had their fun with the earth and decided to leave behind their creation in all its resplendent sun-spattered glory. And then the cold blues and purples of some distant future on the horizon.

He wonders what those mountains would look like on the other side, from up north. 

Soon they’re on the highway, headed back up to Creel. Still in a fairly good mood from earlier, and having found a couple of peppermints in the glovebox to chew on, Ciro feels content to simply sit back and try to understand the chaotic music that Nacho has decided to play on the stereo, something that Nacho introduced to him as “reggaeton”.

After a while of listening to the singer rant over the speakers, Nacho reaches over to turn down the music, and asks suddenly, “So the rest of your family – how are they doing? Do they live in the city as well?”

Ciro shrugs. “No, they’re probably still on our farm, down in Sinaloa.” _That is, if they haven’t moved somewhere else so the cartel won’t be able to find them,_ he adds to himself.

“Lalo ever let you visit them?”

Ciro could answer with a simple “no”. But that would be far from the truth. “I never asked to visit.”

Nacho flashes him a pointed look. After a few moments, he asks “Sinaloa, huh?” and glances at the dashboard. “You know how to get there?”

Ciro blinks dumbly. “What?”

Nacho spins the steering wheel and takes them down the nearest exit, giving Ciro no time to protest. “Look, take it from me, the last thing you want to do is leave your family behind. So let’s pay them a visit.”

And after struggling with directions for the next three hours, they skid to a stop on the same beaten path that Ciro has walked along for most of his life. Ahead of them, behind a curve in the path, is the same house that Ciro remembers – beaten down, dusty, cobwebs in the corners. As Ciro walks toward the front door, he can just glimpse the rows and rows of crops in the distance, tomatoes and maize, hidden by dark green leaves under the dry heat of the sunset.

The wooden door echoes dully as Ciro knocks. And then it swings open cautiously, and a girl stands in front of him. His baby sister – except now she’s almost as tall as he is. Her gaze drifts across his face, then downwards, and with a start, Ciro realizes she’s looking at his necklace. A gift from Lalo, long ago, that had marked Ciro as his, with a scythe emblazoned across the gold pendant that reminds everyone who sees that he is now under the protection of Santa Muerte.

She glances back up, and her eyes are shining with tears of disbelief.

“Ciro?”

“Hi, Estela,” he greets her softly.

* * *

The sun has dipped below the horizon, painting the sky with lurid orange and red streaks by the time Ciro leaves his family for the second time. Nacho is waiting for him back at the car, leaning against the hood with his arms crossed, half consumed by the shadows of the trees.

“How’d it go?” Nacho asks. 

“Fine,” Ciro replies, biting down the emotions welling just at the surface. “I forgot what it was like to be around them, after so long.” 

“How’d you get them to be okay with you leaving anyway?”

Ciro thinks of his mother begging him to stay and his father stony-faced and his sister gazing up at him as he lets go of her hand. Back then, she had been confused. Today, she merely gave him a sorrowful look, full of love and acceptance that he didn’t deserve.

He had missed seven years’ worth of birthdays with her.

“I told them I wanted to make something of myself,” he murmurs shamefully. 

Nacho looks away for a second. He almost seems nervous. “Look, Ciro, I lied to you earlier when I said this trip was only for sightseeing. I need your help for something, and I don’t want anyone else back at the house to know.”

“What is it?” Ciro asks warily.

And when Nacho tells him his plan, Ciro feels like he must have heard wrong because why would Nacho be asking him for help in getting rid of Lalo?

“This…this is a joke, right?” He shuffles towards Nacho a bit, who gazes back at him steadily. “You don’t actually mean that. It’s not…it’s not _that_ bad, the way things are, right?”

“He is _not_ a good person, Ciro. And yes, it _is_ that bad. There are some things about me that if he knew, he would kill me, end of story.” Nacho sighs. “This is just to stay ahead of the game.”

“What things? I – I’m sure I’ve done much worse, and he hasn’t killed me! I mean, one time I even set the kitchen on fire! The whole thing had to be rebuilt!”

Nacho laughs, and there’s the weariness again, bleeding back into his figure. “Well, would you say that burning down his kitchen is worse than trying to kill his beloved uncle?”

And there are thorns in Ciro’s throat, as he tries to find the right things to say. “Trying to kill – _Don Hector?”_ And Nacho just gives him a defiant stare in response, as if challenging him to ask _why,_ and Ciro has to back down. He tries to smooth out the horror in his voice. “Was he – threatening your family?”

“The situation is way more complicated than I have time to explain to you right now.”

“We have lots of time.” Ciro plants his feet firmly into the ground, feeling the crunch of the fallen leaves. “Let me hear it.”

“Okay.” Nacho unfolds his arms. “There’s this other guy – ”

“Another guy?!”

“ – who is basically at war with the Salamancas, and he forced me into working for him, as a sort of double agent. He knows about Hector, and if I don’t do what he says…”

Ciro wills the dull roar of blood in his ears to go away. “Your family’s in danger?”

Nacho points at him, as if saying _yeah, it’s always the same thing with these people._ “I want to get out, completely. Cut all ties with the business. And as it is right now, that option is off the table for both sides. But things have already been set in motion as a result of my choices, and I’m gonna see them through, so that I _can_ get out.” He then extends his arms outwards. “And of course, you’re welcome to join me, if you want.” 

“Okay, so…so you want to get out. That’s great but…but why resort to killing?” Ciro is dangerously close to whining. “I’m sure if you just talk to the guy, he’ll understand. And Lalo can – he can be reasonable too.” And they both know it’s a lie, but the knot in Ciro’s throat tightens and it’s all he can come up with. 

Nacho frowns through the shadows, and for the first time in days, Ciro remembers why he had felt intimidated by him in the first place. “Ciro, there is no reason you should be defending him like this. What has he even done for you? What has he ever given you besides bruises and harsh words?”

“He gave me a home,” Ciro protests. Because in the past few years, he’s come to know everyone at the estate as his second family. They’ve always been there, even when Lalo hasn’t.

Nacho gives him a grim smile. “You don’t actually want to be there. I _know_ you don’t.” He gestures toward the worn-down house behind them. “Not when you have actual family out here. If you’re afraid of Lalo, that’s no reason to continue sticking by him.” 

He wants to tell Nacho that nobody at the estate is loyal to Lalo because they’re afraid of him. Lalo doesn’t even demand it of them – he cultivates it carefully, like a gardener would, with a charming smile here and a pat on the back there, and their loyalty blooms for him freely.

Ciro once again imagines Lalo in the yard, the last night they had been together before he left to go up north. How the word _Albuquerque_ danced across his tongue and how he tripped over its syrupy tones. How he had admonished Ciro for asking him to stay.

And just earlier that day, Nacho had offered to show him around Albuquerque. Had he been trying, even then, to get him to leave?

Ciro shakes his head. The reason is simple, and if he thinks about it much more, Nacho might make him change his mind. “Everyone back there – they’re my family too. I can’t leave them.”

Nacho sighs, and gestures him towards the car. Once they get in, before Nacho can start up the engine, Ciro thinks of another argument to make. “And Lalo has family too, and they’re not all that bad. Marco and Leonel, and Joaquin – ”

“Not all that bad?” Nacho runs a hand down his face. “Here, let me show you something.” Taking one hand off the wheel, he pulls down the collar of his shirt, and Ciro glimpses a pale scar on his shoulder. He can only stare as Nacho tells him about how Tuco had almost killed him. And once he goes through the criminal history of the entire Salamanca family, he ends on Lalo. “He was arrested for murder, you know. He killed an innocent guy just for being in his way, and he’s going to be locked up for good if he tries to go back to Albuquerque.” 

“Well I’ve killed people too,” Ciro whispers.

“So have I,” Nacho retorts, “but the difference is, we feel bad about it. Do you think Lalo cares at all?”

They sit in silence for a while.

And then Nacho speaks again, with an oddly strangled tone. “You know how it feels when you’re driving, and you see another car coming towards you out of nowhere, but you can’t do anything to prevent it? So you can only keep going, but inside you’re just preparing yourself to crash?”

His fingers tighten around the steering wheel. 

“That’s what being with Lalo feels like for me.” He glances over at Ciro. “And I know on some level, you feel the same way.”

A knife against his throat. Fingers yanking his head back and gripping his hair. A grin through the darkness of the bedroom, broken only by the whiteness of teeth.

“But…how can you want him dead? He _loves_ you,” Ciro whispers – and of course he loves him, because Nacho is everything that Ciro is not. And of course Ciro doesn’t understand why Nacho wants Lalo gone, because at one point, Lalo’s love and attention was all he wanted.

Nacho shakes his head with a short laugh. “He doesn’t love me, Ciro. He doesn’t love you either, or anyone else at the house. Don’t you see that?”

Ciro turns away, and the sky is still bleeding into dusk in front of him, burned into his vision, and the only thing he can hear is Nacho’s voice, laying down the inevitable facts that Ciro has chosen to ignore. 

“How do I know you’re telling me the truth now?” he questions.

Nacho doesn’t directly answer him. “Believe me, it _will_ be better with Lalo out of the way. For you, for everyone back there. You need to trust me on this, Ciro.” 

“I barely know you,” Ciro reminds him.

Nacho scoffs. “Yeah, and now that you _do_ know me, look at how different you are. When we were there looking down at the valley, and you were telling me your jokes – when was the last time you laughed like that?”

A distant memory comes to mind, thin like smoke on the horizon. Ciro remembers blushing as Lalo sang for him, attempting to do his best impression of a mariachi singer, with a trill of forced vibrato in his voice. The rich melody burst into the air. _Ese lunar que tienes, cielito lindo, junto a la boca…No se lo des a nadie, cielito lindo, que a mí me toca…_

He had then urged Ciro to join in. “Come on, it’s no fun if I do the whole thing alone!” Ciro had finished the rest of the song in between bursts of laughter, and he had meant every word he said. _Una fleche en el aire, cielito lindo, lanzó Cupido…si la tiró jugando, cielito lindo, a mí me ha herido…_

And later that evening, as they laid in bed with their legs tangled together, Lalo had asked him, “So, what’d you think of my concert back there?”

“I’ve never had a better birthday present,” Ciro confessed, then added shyly, “But Geraldo told me he thought the beginning of your performance left something to be desired.”

“Well, tell Geraldo he can take his criticism and shove it,” Lalo griped, even as he slid his arm underneath Ciro’s neck and let Ciro rest his head against his shoulder. “I mean, that voice crack at the beginning? I did that on purpose. Hey, what – don’t laugh, Ciro! It added something, okay? Made it more real and – stop laughing, you rascal! _No seas ridículo!”_

Ciro glances over at the dashboard. He isn’t sure when they’ll make it back to Creel tonight, but he imagines going back to their hotel room and gazing out at the fiery sunset, and suddenly the thought of being in that peaceful town full of warm colors haunts him.

“I thought you wanted to be friends,” he says, so quietly that he doesn’t think Nacho can hear him.

And if Nacho does hear him, he pretends not to. “So do you want a way out or not?”

Ciro twists around in the passenger’s seat to fix Nacho with what he hopes is a stern glare. “Okay, let’s say that we _do_ go with your plan. So you just kill him…while everyone’s there? That’s not exactly the best idea, is it?” And how would Nacho even know that his other boss would let him go after all this? How would the safety of everyone else at the house be guaranteed?

Of all the questions buzzing around in Ciro’s head, Nacho answers only one. “It’s the best plan I’ve got,” Nacho says, putting the key into the ignition. “And besides, I’ve known Lalo for five months, and you’ve known him for years. Somehow I don’t think it’s fair for me to be doing the killing.”

All sternness is leached right out of Ciro as the ugly truth comes to him, and with it, a bone-chilling numbness. “You’re hoping I’ll be the one who does it,” he says weakly, but his voice is drowned out by the reluctant roar of the engine coming to life. 

On the drive back up to Creel, Nacho tells him to take some time to think about it, and Ciro imagines what he would do if he agrees. What he would say. _Yes, there are no security cameras, no alternate exits, no hidden weapons. Yes, I have a weapon we can use. No, I don’t think he would suspect anything._

He mouths over and over, to himself, _I don’t love him. He hurts me all the time even when he doesn’t try to, and I don’t love him._

He feels himself crumbling. 

* * *

Ciro remembers clearly the first time he had ever killed a person, several months after he first started working at the estate. He had been patrolling that evening, when he ran across a masked man trying to break in through the glass door leading to the kitchen. He had obviously scaled the fence that, at the time, had been the only thing bordering their property. There was a moment of shocked silence as they each met the other’s gaze, waiting for someone to make the next move, and then the man smashed through the door and crawled his way inside, and Ciro heard Yolanda’s cries from within.

Launching into action, Ciro ran in after him and fumbled with the gun tucked into his waistband. Stepping around the shattered glass glinting up at him from the floor, he aimed the gun at the intruder, and he must have shouted _something_ because the man turned back to look at him, giving Yolanda the chance to run from the kitchen.

The gun misfired. The man approached him quickly, reaching to draw his own weapon, and panic and fear mingled to form an overwhelming sense of self-preservation as Ciro pulled the trigger again, and again, and it wasn’t until he heard the last of three bullets clatter onto the floor that the man finally dropped in front of him. His head spun as he noticed the blood beginning to pool.

Lalo had come over, eyebrows raised as he saw the body, then the smashed glass on the ground. A brief shadow of annoyance passed over his face. “ _Dios mío,_ again? That door was brand new!” He crouched to fish around in the man’s pocket and pulled out his wallet. “You’re paying, _cabrón_.”

Ciro quietly retreated outside as Lalo directed some of the others to clean up the mess, and he had made it through three cigarettes before Lalo joined him at the fence. Beside them, the eternally-lit fireplace flickered through the slowly darkening evening. “Hey, you did good back there.”

“Why did he break in? Was he trying to kill us?” Ciro asked softly.

“Oh, it happens from time to time. Enemies learn where I live and try to get me in my own home.” Lalo shrugged. “But I have to say, it’s been disappointing lately. That guy back there, with no back-up?” He let out a derisive laugh. “I mean, if you come after the Salamancas, you better not miss.”

Ciro glanced down and rested his elbows against the fence, trying to stop the headache starting to spider across his temples.

And Lalo was still talking. “I really should put up a wall or something – you know, to replace this stupid fence.” Lalo stretched out his arms to show Ciro just how wide the barricade should be. “Maybe wires on the top, so people can’t climb over. And of course, a big iron door, with a lock. Total security.”

Ciro was only half-listening. Lalo smirked, taking his silence to mean something else. “Don’t look so disappointed, Ciro. I mean, no offense, but half the time all you guys do is prance around making the place look good. We do need _some_ security around here, you know.”

“ _Patrón,_ what’s going to happen to that man?” Ciro asked quietly, turning over the cigarettes in his palm and watching the last remnants of smoke curl upwards.

But he already knew the answer, and Lalo confirmed it with a nonchalant wave. “What always happens. We’ll take him out to the middle of nowhere and send him off in style, with some nice big flames.” And then he added, with a wink, “You can come along if you want.” 

“But…” Ciro glanced back at the house where the body remained. He imagined how the man’s family must feel, when he didn’t return back home. If he even had a family to return to. 

Lalo held up both hands with a guiltless smile. “Hey, this is what happens when you mess with the Salamancas. And like I said, good for you for shooting him when you did.” 

“I don’t know if I can do that again, _patrón,”_ Ciro said shamefully, staring very hard down at the grass which was starting to turn brown in the heat of summer, the color of dried bloodstains on white tablecloths and tiled floors.

The smirk barely fell from Lalo’s face. “Come on, Ciro, everyone has a death wish. You said it yourself, that’s the way our culture is. I mean” – he plucked a shriveled cigarette from Ciro’s hand – “you’re slowly killing yourself with these, and you’re not afraid of that, are you?”

Ciro thought about the man’s face the moment he knew he had been shot. That look of rigid terror, the way panic seized up his limbs, the choked gasp of someone who knew their life was coming to an end. And despite what Ciro had learned from his own experiences, he wasn’t prepared to face this so viscerally, or to bring about death by his own hand.

“This is different,” Ciro mumbled. “He didn’t just die. I _killed_ him.”

“Ah, but what I’m saying is that shooting him should be second-nature to you. I mean, what kind of cartel employee fears bringing death to others? She comes for everyone anyway, and the sooner you get over it, the better.” Lalo gave him what seemed like a reassuring wink. Then, as Ciro lowered his head in shame, Lalo sighed. “Come here, kid.” 

He hopped over to Lalo’s side. Lalo curled an arm around his back to draw him closer, his hand resting lightly on Ciro’s waist. 

“Ciro, you know what a smokescreen is?”

Ciro shook his head.

“Well, think of it as some kind of cover that you can put up during war, or to hide illegal activities, perhaps. Set up a huge fire, and people can’t see through the smoke.”

“That’s…interesting, _patrón,”_ Ciro says, trying to sound less confused.

“To make things easier for you to think about, killing someone is basically the reverse of setting up a smokescreen.” Lalo took the remaining cigarettes from Ciro’s hand and scattered them into the fireplace. “Just think of it as…clearing the smoke, you know? Letting him see a world he couldn’t see before.”

“So what I did…wasn’t bad?” Ciro asked. 

“Nah, the only thing you did was speed up his journey. And who knows, he probably had loved ones waiting for him. Probably did him a favor, if you ask me.”

Ciro breathed a little easier. And then Lalo said, “You will always have a place here, you know that, right? As long as you behave and do what I say.”

“Of course, _patrón,”_ Ciro vowed. And as he looked over at Lalo – the firelight illuminating his profile and shimmering in his eyes, the flicker of a smile on his lips – Ciro realized how beautiful he really was. The sight made him feel a strange sense of sorrow.

“So, you gonna be okay with doing your job from now on?”

He had felt it even then, slipping from his grasp, like sand falling from between his fingers. And he had been terrified to lose it. He forced himself to forget the sight of the fallen assassin, the light fading from his eyes. He would try to understand, for Lalo. He had to.

“I’m glad I killed that man. He would have hurt us.” And if he repeated this again and again, he could almost start to believe it.

Lalo grinned, with the slightest hint of teeth. “Very good, Ciro. You might end up being useful after all.” 

This is what Ciro remembers as he glances down at the dusty knife in his drawer. 

“This is just our way of protecting ourselves,” Nacho had said.

“If you can’t run, then fight,” his father had warned, holding out the knife to him. 

As the handle of said knife grows heavy in his hand, Ciro repeats to himself, over and over: _this is just self-defense._ But all he can think about is the feeling of Lalo next to him, a warm hand on his back. Lalo singing wildly in the kitchen, as beside him Yolanda cuts into a birthday cake. Lalo, standing outside in the rain, his philosophical musings about death and acceptance boiling down to nothing, as the smoke thickened the minute he heard about Don Hector’s illness.

Ciro tightens his grip on the knife.

He makes up his mind even before he hears Nacho come into the room. “I’m sorry, I – we shouldn’t do this. Not to him.”

He wonders if Nacho will roll his eyes, or scream at him, or plead with him to remember their conversation several days ago. But Nacho simply shoots him a disappointed look. Then, with a dramatic sigh, he takes the knife from Ciro and waves him away, and his acceptance comes disconcertingly quick. “Okay. It was worth a try.”

Ciro thinks about how Nacho had told him that things had already been set in motion. By who, he had never mentioned.

“You won’t do anything, right? We’re all gonna be safe here?” Ciro asks, gripped by sudden fear. “We can come up with another plan, just not one that…” He swallows past the lump in his throat. “I’ll help you, I promise. Your other boss won’t need to know.”

Nacho doesn’t look back at him. “Don’t worry about it, seriously.” 

Through the dust, Ciro once again sees Lalo swiping his tongue over his lips. His triumphant grin flashes from across the passenger seat. _Did I surprise you, mi cielito?_

Ciro closes his eyes in despair.

Then a few days later, he sees Nacho make a call, something which should have been impossible to do here. Ciro doesn’t say anything at the time, but quietly, he begins to regret letting Nacho take his knife.

* * *

“Ciro, where are you? Get your ass in the kitchen now!"

Ciro had spent the majority of the night outside, watching the horses graze and occasionally glancing around the corner of the house to check on Lalo and Nacho, both of whom are sitting around the fireplace. Once he hears the silence shattered by Lalo’s angry yell, unexpectedly coming from inside, he rushes to the kitchen on a jolt of adrenaline. “What is it, _patrón?”_

“I really wasn’t hoping to deal with this shit tonight.” Lalo grabs the pack of cigarettes from the countertop, and gestures toward the stove, upon which a pan filled with oil is smoking. “What’d I tell you about lighting up inside? Trying to burn down my kitchen again?” 

Ciro scrambles for something to defend himself with. “This wasn’t me! I was outside all night, _patrón!”_

“Don’t lie to me, Ciro.” Lalo reaches over and wraps his fingers around Ciro’s arm. “I know you’ve been keeping secrets from me.” And over Ciro’s stuttered protests, he continues, “I still remember, you know. That story you told me about your grandfather being betrayed.”

“My great grandfather,” Ciro corrects him, but Lalo merely shoots him a glare.

“So of course, when Ignacio tells me he found this lying in your room, in plain sight” – and to Ciro’s horror, Lalo pulls the _navaja_ from his belt and flips it open, and the blade glints threateningly through the dim yellow light of the kitchen – “you can imagine what I start thinking.” 

“No!” Ciro sputters. “I swear, _patrón_ – ever since I first showed it to you, I’ve never used that knife! It’s – it’s Nacho, he took it from – ”

“Don’t bring Ignacio into this,” Lalo snaps. “I know you haven’t always been happy here, but I didn’t think you had it in you, to actually try killing me.”

“It wasn’t me,” Ciro pleads, as half-formed thoughts dash into existence. “Please, you have to believe me – it wasn’t me. I would _never_ hurt you.”

Lalo continues to glare down at him. “So what, are you saying that _Ignacio_ is the one to blame?”

Ciro hesitates. 

“Look at me,” Lalo snaps, jerking Ciro’s chin up to look at him directly.

And then Lalo’s gaze drifts slightly off to the right, and Ciro notices the subtle widening of his eyes. Before he can say or do anything else, his boss tackles him to the ground. They both hit the tile, just as the sound of gunfire roars above them. In shock, Ciro lifts his head to look for the shooter but Lalo forces him back down with a hard shove. “Stay down, _cabrón!”_

A few more moments, and the gunfire stops. Ciro asks, voice trembling, “Are they gone?” before Lalo quiets him with a stern gaze. Then Lalo moves slowly, fluidly, towards the cabinets, where he pulls out the gun hidden there behind the decanters. Ciro’s heart pounds wildly as he realizes this is another assassination.

After an agonizing period, with Ciro still huddled on the floor in stunned silence, and with Lalo pressed against the back wall, they hear footsteps approaching. And then, without warning, a second wave of gunfire starts, and as Lalo returns fire, Ciro scrambles behind the counter. The bullets clatter down beside him. 

He hears a thud, and notices one of the intruders collapsed on the tile, right next to him. He isn’t dead yet. There’s blood coming from his arm – it’s not a fatal wound, but Ciro knows what he must do, even though he doesn’t want to. He snatches up the knife that Lalo had dropped earlier, and crawls over to the man, who looks up at him in astonishment. Ciro whispers a shaky prayer, then puts his knife against the man’s neck. “ _Esto será rápido,”_ he says, more to himself than anything else, finds the vein with trembling fingers, and in a few more seconds, the man draws his last breath. 

Through the haze of smoke and gunpowder, Ciro can see at least two more bodies lying dead on the floor. Lalo has vanished, however, and without hesitation Ciro knows that he’s gone to look for Nacho.

Ciro gets to his feet, still shaking, and realizes the right thing to do would be to check the house and make sure everyone else is okay. He’s just about to head out the kitchen door, cursing himself for not having a better weapon on him, when he nearly bumps into Miguel, who aims at him with his gun. Once he sees who it is, he relaxes, lowering his weapon.

“Ciro, come on, we have to get out of here!”

And then from the hallway behind them, there’s the sound of bullets being discharged, followed by a spattering of gunpowder that sours the air, and Ciro shares a shocked look with Miguel – the guard teeters back and forth slightly, as if indecisive, before he drops to the floor, and there’s a dark stain on his chest, right over his heart, growing larger and more irregular by the second, and under Ciro’s horrified gaze more blood runs in hot rivulets from the wound, scorching through the front of his shirt and turning the pale yellow fabric black. 

Instinct throws a veil over him, and Ciro stumbles frantically over to the fallen guard. He shakily holds a hand to the wound. Even in front of his eyes, Miguel’s breathing is weakening, his pulse stuttering, confused – and with each exhale, the puddle of dark blood beneath his shoulder grows.

He hears cursing from above, and more gunshots, and he whips his head around in time to see the previously-hidden assassin collapse. Lalo stands there, terrible anger gleaming in his eyes as he shoots the assassin again, for good measure. He looks over at Ciro, then at Miguel, and his gaze hardens in an instant. 

“Yolanda’s dead too. They’re all dead.”

And Ciro doesn’t hear anything else over the sudden roaring in his ears. A weakness settles over him, heavy and all-consuming, and then come the beginnings of guilt, the static that surges inside his head, telling him _he should have been there to protect her like he had before_. He comes back to himself when Lalo kneels in front of him, eyes as black as obsidian from fire, blood smeared over his cheek like war paint. 

“Have you seen Ignacio?”

“I – I haven’t seen him, _patrón.”_ Ciro chokes out, words feeling like grit in his mouth, Miguel’s blood seeping out from between his fingers as he tries to hold the last shreds of his life intact. 

“He’s not where I left him in the yard,” Lalo growls, picking up the fallen knife, and Ciro closes his eyes in tearful frustration, because even now they both refuse to see what’s right in front of them. Because deep down, he thinks it’s really Nacho who’s behind this, just like he had hinted before –

“Hey, Ciro, you hear what I said? Miguel’s gone, we have to leave him,” Lalo says. He takes Ciro’s hand and drags it away from the wound. The blood on the floor is thickening by now, and the blood on Ciro’s fingers is also congealing, cooling by the second, the way the mark left by a fiery brand cools into a scar that never fades. A reminder of the price they’ve paid.

Lalo stands with a groan, dragging Ciro up with him, and it isn’t until then that Ciro notices the fabric of his jeans shorn apart above his knee, blood-soaked and still dripping. 

He needs to tell Lalo about the call. He should have told him back then, because now it’s definitely too late.

And when he does, he watches the lines on Lalo’s face harden, and the shadows seem to close in around them both until Ciro finds himself lost within the cold fury of Lalo’s eyes.

Lalo tells Ciro to grab whatever he needs so that they can leave. His blistering rage sears through the smokescreen, the lie Nacho had been putting on for months now – and in that moment, Ciro can believe Lalo when he says that being betrayed is worse than dying.

With dread curling within him, Ciro walks down the hallway, past the empty guest room, and slowly opens the door to his own room, hoping against hope that Nacho is there – whether dead or alive, it wouldn’t matter, as long as he hasn’t disappeared. 

Instead, he finds a single vermilion bird feather lying on the bed, a slash of scarlet against the sheets like a fresh wound. 

* * *

When Lalo tells him to drive them both up to Albuquerque, he resists at first. “ _Patrón,_ I don’t think it would be best for you to go back.” 

“Just do what I say.” With a groan, Lalo throws himself down into the passenger’s seat of the only car that isn’t riddled with bullet holes – their Firebird. He presses a hand to his wound.

Feeling sick, Ciro cleans his hands of Miguel’s blood as best he can, and then takes up his position in the driver’s seat. It isn’t long before the estate is shrinking in the rearview mirror, and the gentle greenery that had borne witness to a slaughter is replaced by uncaring desert once again.

Beside him, Lalo fumbles with the stereo, as if they’re headed out on a normal trip. The soft instrumental tones of “Bittersweet Samba” begin playing, trumpets melting into the otherwise silence of the car. Lalo lets the song go on for a while, before abruptly switching to the next song. And once the lyrics of “This Guy’s In Love With You” begin, he shuts the stereo off altogether, and slumps back into his seat.

“Should’ve known something was off.” Lalo growls. He slams his head against the headrest, making Ciro jump. “Should never have trusted him.”

“It’s not your fault.” Ciro tries to sound reassuring, but his words are brushed aside. Lalo continues to ramble for a bit, and Ciro looks down at his wound, which is still bleeding sluggishly. He realizes too late that he should have grabbed something to apply as a tourniquet.

“You’d think I would’ve learned from before.” And then Lalo reaches over to grasp Ciro’s hand. “But you’ve always been here, _mi cielito.”_

Ciro tries to free himself gently. “No, _patrón,_ you – you need to focus on your injury.”

“Oh come on, there’s that fear again,” Lalo groans, shooting him an unreadable look. “If I die, Ciro, then I’ll make sure he does as well.” And in a flash, he’s holding out the _navaja,_ blade dark with blood in the moonlight. 

“Please, just – you’ll bleed out, keep your hand on it,” Ciro nearly whimpers, trying to tone down the high-pitched panic in his voice. 

Lalo is silent for a minute, before he leans toward Ciro and presses the knife into his free hand. His voice is dripping, seething with an emotion that rings through the car, anger cavernous and hollow. “Whoever gets to him first then, okay? _Se lo merece.”_

_End them before they end you._

The road blurs dangerously ahead of him. Ciro blinks furiously to clear his vision of unshed tears. He takes the knife from Lalo and folds the blade back into the handle. “You’re hurt, _patrón_ …you don’t mean that.” 

“What makes you think I don’t?” Lalo growls. “He betrayed both of us. _All_ of us.”

He thinks of preparing breakfast with Yolanda as the smell of fresh oranges and bitter coffee fills the kitchen, and then of leaning against the back gate with the other guards, drinking beer and exchanging quips about the most mundane things. He’ll never do those things again.

And then he’s thrown back to the time he and Nacho stood looking down at the Valley of the Monks, at the people who were trapped in there behind a veil of patience, waiting for so long they couldn’t even tell they were turning to stone. He remembers Nacho silhouetted against that blue sky, asking about Ciro’s family, concealing his lacewing-thin loyalty. And then he remembers his own fledgling hope, fluttering in his chest without preamble, springing into existence at the mere sight of someone who had understood him. Or so he had thought.

He thinks about Nacho, sullen and withdrawn for the past few days, making calls that shouldn’t have happened, and realizes the signs were so clear. All those memories they created together – sharing pizza, walking along the streets of Creel, and sitting in the car with the windows rolled down – seem like they had happened to someone else.

“Okay, _patrón._ I promise.”

This seems to satisfy Lalo, who leans his head back, a tired glaze in his eyes.

They continue driving up the road. An hour passes, maybe two. Lalo drifts in and out of consciousness in the passenger seat, and Ciro grips the steering wheel so tightly that his arms begin trembling.

“Don’t worry, _patrón,_ we’ll find him,” he tries desperately. He glances over at Lalo, whose eyes slowly blink back open. The gaze he fixes upon Ciro is hazy, unfocused. 

“Oh, we better.” The venom in those words doesn’t quite match the rest of his tired expression. With a thrill of horror, Ciro realizes that he can’t handle being alone right now. So he tries to fill the silence the only way he knows how.

Years ago, during their long drive back from Michoacán, Lalo had asked Ciro if he wanted to learn English. Ciro, who had been dozing off against his shoulder in a rather uncomfortable position, startled awake. “I already know some English, _patrón,”_ he protested.

Lalo flashed him a smug grin. “What _you_ know, doesn’t count. If you really wanna speak like an American, you have to do as I say.” And to humor his boss, Ciro had agreed. 

Thirty minutes later, Ciro was complaining about the ignorant _dipshit_ driving down the middle of the _fucking_ road, who didn’t seem to _give a damn_ about cars on the opposite lane – and what a _bitchy_ attitude for that little _fucker_ to have. Beside him, Lalo doubled over with proud laughter. “Tone it down, Ciro! Yolanda won’t be happy with us if she finds out!” Lalo then purposefully swerved towards the car in question, whose driver honked indignantly but backed into the other lane nonetheless.

Ciro recounts this memory for Lalo, along with many others. Once in a while, he glances over at his _patrón_. To his horror, Lalo’s hand has fallen to the side, and the wound on his leg is now seeping freely. The moonlight falls in a soft beam over the lower half of Lalo’s face, illuminating a faint smile on his bloody lips. With a pang, Ciro thinks about reaching over to kiss the blood away.

Then Lalo chuckles, the sound bubbling forth from his bruised throat and merging into a half-hearted cough. “You sure know how to entertain, Ciro.” And so Ciro returns his eyes to the flat stretch of road before them, blinks his sudden tears away, and continues reaching back into the gaping abyss of memories.

They had left everyone who mattered back there – Yolanda, Cecilio, Miguel and the rest. And for what? Now that the smoke has cleared, and they’ve gone over to a place where he can’t reach them, who else does he have besides the man next to him? What else can he do besides continue driving, towards answers and maybe even towards nothing?

His useless words bluster forth into the still air, and Ciro drives faster, for fear of running out of time. The road in front of them seems to stretch for eternity, cutting a straight path through the flat brown scrubland on either side, the edges drawing closer and closer until they vanish into a point on the horizon, becoming one with the sickly gray, pre-dawn sky. All the while, Nacho’s warning about what would happen if Lalo returns to Albuquerque rings in his ears.

He keeps talking long after Lalo falls silent.

* * *

The sun has barely crested over the hills when the officer patrolling that section of the highway pulls over a white car for speeding, just a few miles north of the border. As he approaches the car, he notices that the person in the driver’s seat is a young man, hunched over in the shadows, shaking with quiet sobs. The boy looks up at him, spews out something in Spanish that sounds like a plea for help.

The officer is just about to ask if he even has a license to drive this vehicle when he sees the other passenger in the car, who is slumped against the window. The man’s right leg is completely crusted with black blood, stark against the dark red leather of the seat. And then the officer catches sight of the distinctive blue tattoo swirling across the man’s forearm.

He calls for backup and an ambulance, tries to soothe the boy’s fear. It takes them a good twenty minutes or so to arrive, but once the other police cruisers pull up, they begin searching the vehicle. The boy is pulled off to the side, and watches with wide eyes as they tug a gun out from between the seats. 

They handcuff the man to the stretcher and start loading him into the ambulance. All the while, the boy fights against the officer restraining him. He continues blurting out words in Spanish. Slightly irritated by now, the police officer gripping his arms asks for a translator to explain why they’re arresting the man – the illegal firearm, the tattoo that identifies him as the prisoner who had recently jumped bail up in Albuquerque – but before he can get a response on that, the boy suddenly switches to English. Halting, choked up, filled with uncertainty and the beginnings of anger. 

“Where are you fucking taking him?”

The officers leave the boy behind with a warning to slow down his driving. The ambulance departs first, sirens throwing out red and blue light in its wake. The police cruisers follow closely behind.

They don’t notice the boy, with tears in his eyes, slowly reach a hand into his pocket to pull out his knife. He looks down at it, clicks it open, and the snapping of steel against wood goes unheard in the vast desert, even as it sends dried blood flaking into the dust. Then he turns his gaze upwards, following the road to where it inevitably ends in Albuquerque.

And if any cars happened to drive by, they might have seen the glinting of that blade, metal coated red, in the early morning light.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rough translation for the lyrics! (from the song Cielito Lindo) Lalo: “That beauty mark that you have, sweet little heaven, beside your mouth. Do not give it to anyone, sweet little heaven, for it is mine.” And Ciro: “An arrow in the air, sweet little heaven, Cupid has flung. If he shot it as a jest, sweet little heaven, it has hurt me.” Other little things: _Se lo merece_ = he deserves it. _Esto será rápido_ = this will be quick. Chapter title = “the end of all things”. And the songs they listen to in the car are by Herb Alpert & the Tijuana Brass! Lalo owns all their albums, I don’t make the rules :)
> 
> A quick disclaimer that some descriptions of the locations in this chapter may not be entirely accurate, I did the best that I could just looking at pictures! Also, I hope it’s somewhat believable that Nacho would be transparent with Ciro regarding Gus and Lalo! He just needs someone to confide in but not appear entirely powerless.
> 
> Next up: Lalo gets up to some shenanigans in prison + his side of the story. I’ve learned to not make promises on when the next chapter will be done but I WILL finish this thing! Until then, if you’re interested, you can find me on Tumblr (@ the-parallax-of-rain) where I’ve been posting some research tidbits (mainly pictures tbh) and behind-the-scenes stuff.


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